Paris-Milan-Bergamo-Como-Verona

I made it safe and relatively sound (definitely tired) to Milan on Thursday at 7:10 am. By 7:25, I was at Il Duomo, wandering around in relative peace. Milan doesn't seem to wake before 8 am, making it hard to even find a cup of coffee, but allowing a nearly empty tour of the interior of the Duomo. It's huge and impressive, though I far preferred the roof tour, which gave a great view of the multiple layers of construction. My guidebooks mention that there are over 3000 statues on the building, which seems believable considering that each spire has about 8-12.

I next toured the Brera and Ambrosiana museums, which were excellent. My criteria: strong, interesting collection which a few recognizable pieces, ideally small enough to be completed in under two hours (before brain fatigue sets in). Both focused on religious art, and had small collections of 18th and 19th century works, including several by Francesco Hayez that I particularly liked. He's known for "The Kiss", but also did Whistler-esque society portraits. I liked the Ambrosiana the most, because they had a restoration area right in the center of one of the portrait galleries. It was interesting to watch the people work.

Lesson for the rest of the trip: leave the most important church for the end. I saw three or four others (San Alessandro being the most appealing), but they all paled in comparison to Il Duomo.

I planned a day for all of this, but finished up around 1 pm. The train to como wasn't scheduled to leave for 5 hours, so I spent the afternoon traveling to and around Bergamo. This was a lovely little walled town in the center of a larger modern one. It's know for the extremely baroque Capella Colleoni church (which is indeed quite ornate, to the point of being gawdy). I took a bus around the outer wall, then walked through the center. This town isn't necessarily worth the trip, but would be a great place to study abroad. I assume there are several schools in the town, gaging from the fact that nearly everyone I saw was under 25 and carrying a bookbag.

Two more hours on the train brought me to Como and a nice, quiet, and clean hostel. The town was covered in fog. My next trip to Como will be a better funded one; it seemed like a great place to enjoy with a healthy budget. The hills were covered with grand villas covering the hillside.

I'm nearing the end of my second day in Verona. While you could get through the major sites in a single day, the pace is slow here and I've enjoyed wandering the streets. I've seen 8 churches (my favorite being the one devoted to San Zeno, which was originally constructed around 806 A.D.), the Colliseum and Juliet's house (unremarkable), several roman ruins, a small museum, the view from the top of the Austrian military baracks, several bicycle shops (I spent most of the day with two nice young men from a town near Shasta who plan to bike from Verona to Rome, if they can find bikes), and a few other things. Verona isn't so much about the things in it as about the town itself--it's friendly, full of beautiful, old buildings, and quite atmospheric. The kind of place where it's okay to do nothing but be there.

I plan to eat something with a lot of cheese on it tonight, drink some of the excellent local wine (very light and fruity), head off to Bologna tomorrow morning, and make it to Florence by nightfall (note to future travelers: there are few direct trains between Verona and Florence; you have to plan on a detour to either Milan or Bologna).