Bonjour mes amis! Friday, April 1, Lee and I travelled to Milan, Italy. Milan is Italy's second largest city and the capital of Lombardy and has a population of over 1 million people. Lee and I were immediately aware of a fashion-conscious, progressive city, with beautiful architecture. Milan was called "the central place" by the Romans in 300 BC, and by 300 AD, it was the capital of the western half of the Roman Empire. By the time of the Renaissance, Milan was named "the New Athens," and was the cultural center that Leonardo da Vinci called home. We began our exploration at the Duomo which is in the city center, and is the 4th largest church in Europe. Back when Europe was divided into many tiny kingdoms, the dukes of Milan wanted to impress their counterparts in Germany and France by building a massive, richly ornamental cathedral. The Duomo is loaded with pointed arches and spires. The cathedral was built of beautiful pink marble from top to bottom. The Duomo is 525 by 300 feet, immense, with more than 2,000 statues inside and 52 large pillars representing the weeks of the year. It was built to hold 40,000 people, which was the entire population of Milan when the project began. Construction of this cathedral was from 1386-1810. This construction project originated the Italian phrase for "neverending: like building a cathedral." After visiting the Duomo we took a "hop-on, hop-off" bus tour of Milan. Milan was a lovely city!
Mme. Wallace
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