I am staying in a nice hotel here in Milan, and Odysseus is comfortable down in the garage under the hotel. He and I are both happy to not be riding in this heat. After a summer of rain and cold weather, I was crying for some warmth, but this is far too much heat. It is broiling hot. That doesn't keep me from getting out and exploring this fine city, though. I was here years ago, but it is sure not the way I remember it from that trip. One of the first things I wanted to do was visit the famous Duomo church. It is magnificent.
I bought a ticket to go up on the room. I am a cheapskate, so I decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator. I wish I had counted the steps in those stairs. There were sure a lot of them, going around and around in a tight spiral staircase. The view from the top is impressive.
I bet a dedicated photographer could get some wonderful shots from up on top Milano's Duomo. I am not all that dedicated, but I still took several pictures.
I won't bore you with all the pictures I took, but maybe one more ......
Inside the church was impressive too. I wonder if the place is ever filled. Maybe on Christmas Eve? Or Easter Sunday?
Just to prove I was there, here is a picture of me....
This guy needs to get out of church once in a while and go eat a McDonald's burger.
Milan has several churches, and this next one is particularly famous. It is the Basilica Santa Maria dela Grazie. Can you guess why it is famous?
You did not even try to guess, did you. Be honest now. Okay, I will tell you why it is famous. It is because Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper here. It is down in the basement.
I have to be honest. I took that picture of The Last Supper from the internet. It turned out that I had to order tickets at least two weeks in advance to see the thing. Oh well. There was a lot to see in Milano. I especially enjoyed this Chinese drum group.
They sure put a lot of effort into their show.
Get out of the fountain, kid. The fish in there will eat your toes off.
I came to Milan because there World's Fair is there this year. I had a little extra time in my schedule, and I wanted to see it.
President Obama was at the USA pavilion to greet me. I wonder how he knew I was coming.
I wandered around in there looking at the pavilions of various countries until I was exhausted.
The pavilion I enjoyed most was the one with the New Holland farm equipment. Look at the size of this combine. I was able to sit in the cab of the thing.
This is a grape harvester. New Holland claims that it is as gentle as if the grapes were picked by hand. It even pulls the stems out of the grapes before putting them into a truck. I think it looks like something from the Star Wars movies.
New Holland says that being in the cab of one of these machines is as quiet as being in a limousine.
Look at these two playing their horns at the Swiss pavilion. I didn't know that they could actually play music on those horns. It was pretty good.
This day absolutely exhausted me. I was tired and over heated by the time I got back to my air conditioned hotel. I go back to the Expo tomorrow, and then I have two days to get back up to Heidelberg before my Green Card insurance expires for this summer. I hope to
have enough time to ride back over one of the famous alpine passes on my way back to Germany. I wish we had some mountains in Illinois and Indiana.
