Day Tripper

I know it seems like all I do here is update you on the recent travel opportunities I've had, but frankly, other than speaking and studying Italian, there's not much else happening at the moment. (Unless you want to hear about how annoyingly loud the four Frenchmen in this Internet room with me are being.) I suspect, come autumn, the travel anecdotes will be far less frequent. Hopefully, the posts in general will not follow suit.

The Duomo in Milan

On Saturday, a large group of us headed into Milan for the day. The quickest route was taking the ferry across the lake to Laveno and then catching a train from there, about a two-hour trip altogether. After arriving, we first headed down the Via Dante to see Milan's most famous site, the Duomo. Although started in 1386, the cathedral took various forms throughout the next 400 years or so as different archbishops and their different architects made the structure look more Gothic or less so, more breathtaking or less so, etc. Eventually Napoleon Bonaparte ordered it finished in 1805, and today it is generally considered one of the greatest churches in Europe and is the second biggest in Italy after St. Peter's. It's most known for its spires, of which there are some 130 adorning its façade and roof. Although I debated whether to do so, I'm very happy that I paid the seven euro or so to ascend the steps to the terrace to view the spires more closely.

Walking the grounds of the Castello Sforzesco

After touring the Duomo and the surrounding area, which includes the famous Galleria and La Scala, I ended up getting separated from the rest of my group and spent the rest of the day alone. However, armed with a map and a desire to walk a little faster around town, I wasn't worried. I retraced my steps up the Via Dante (a quite picturesque, pedestrian-only road that reminded me a lot of Paris) to the Castello Sforzesco, a 15th-century castle originally built to defend the Milanese from the invading Venetians. It's enormous (and used to be even bigger) and now houses more than ten of the varioius civic museums. Deciding to use my feet a lot that day, I also made the trek around the city to see the Basilica of Saint Ambrose, originally built in the late 4th century by the bishop-saint for the martyrs of that area of the city but later renamed after its founder. I was also fortunate enough to see the Basilica of Saint Lawrence, the oldest church in Milan, erected on the site of Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313 which legalized Christianity. As you might have realized by now, Italy is just packed with sites of religious importance. I'm fortunate to have seen so many in the month or so that I've been here.

A statue of Constantine in front of the Basilica of Saint Lawrence

On Sunday, I had to venture into Switzerland to pick up some tickets for an upcoming trip I'm making to Switzerland -- yes, that doesn't make sense, but that's Europe. Instead of spending three hours on a train for no reason, I decided to make an afternoon trip out of it in Brig, a small, quiet, and very picturesque mountain town set along the Rhone in the Simplon Pass, one of the more important passages through the Alps (connecting the Pennines with the Lepontines). Its most famous citizen was one Kaspar von Jodok Stockalper, a baron/businessman/soldier/politician who long controlled the silk and salt trades through the Simplon. He built himself a huge palace, the Stockalperschloss, which now is Brig's only real historical landmark. I walked around a bit more, checking out the impressive canal system that Brig (and presumably the rest of Switzerland) has to divert glacial melt, in this case, to the milk-colored Rhone. After about three hours of raising the eyebrows of many of the locals to the presence of a foreigner, I headed back to Verbania.

The Stockalperschloss in Brig with the Fusshörner peak in the distant background

Feragosto is the general name for the vacation nearly every Italian takes, to greater or lesser degree, during the month of August. Many often plan their trips around the 15th of August, the Feast of the Assumption for which nearly everything is closed. This includes our Italian lessons, of course, and so to make up for the missed time, a couple of our instructresses took our group on a little afternoon jaunt yesterday to Lago D'Orta, a lake nearby that's quite a bit smaller and quite a bit quieter than Lago Maggiore. We stopped at the Island of San Giuglio, known for its quite lovely basilica that houses the relics of Saint Julius of Novara. According to tradition, the brother-Saints Julius and Julian preached in the Novara area of Italy in the 4th century and took as their mission the task of building (or converting) churches, dedicating them to the apostles. After Julian's death, and close to death himself, Julius arrived at Lago D'Orta and decided that, despite the fierce dragon that lived there, the island in the middle would be a fitting place for a church. Julius drove off the dragon and founded on the island his 100th and final church.

Our group trekking around the Passage of Silence on the Island of Saint Giuglio

So, three excursions in three days. I'm enjoying it while it lasts though for, as I said, it ain't gonna last forever.