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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Pisa and Milan 2012

Our next overnight stay (after Florence) was on Lake Maggiore.

On the way to the lake we spent some time in Pisa and Milan.

In Pisa we visited the city's main tourist attraction: The Leaning Tower. As you can see from the video below, Margaret indulged in a bit of shopping.



It is a "freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa. It is situated behind the Cathedral and is the third oldest structure in Pisa's Cathedral Square (Piazza del Duomo) after the Cathedral and the Baptistry." Source: here

In Milan we spent some time in another Cathedral Square (Piazza del Duomo)...



... and toured the Cathedral.

Construction of the cathedral started in 1386 and it took 450 years to complete. See this link for details.

(Click on images for a larger version)


Adjoining the Piazza is The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II:

"a double arcade ... formed by two glass-vaulted arcades intersecting in an octagon covering the street connecting Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Scala.

The Galleria is named after Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of the Kingdom of Italy. It was originally designed in 1861 and built by Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877.
" Source: here. For a detailed description of Italian Unification see here.



At the beginning of the previous video the statue of Leonardo da Vinci can be seen in the Piazza della Scala. "Leonardo worked in Milan from 1482 until 1499. He was commissioned to paint the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception and The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie". Source.

Here is a closer view of Leonardo...



The video finishes with the famous La Scala opera house. The exterior is not particularly impressive, but the interior, which I viewed from the museum, certainly is - as shown in the photo. (That is not one of my photos, I found in on the net.) The show for that evening was the incomparable Tosca. Tickets were still available, and I would have purchased one if we were staying in Milan.


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Click on this link for my pictures of Milan. ____________________________________________________

I might have missed out on my favourite opera, but we had the spectacular scenery of Lake Maggiore to come

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