Everyone loves a good mystery. Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” was a runaway best-seller for a reason, after all. But the latest Leonardo da Vinci-related mystery seems to have a bit more credibility. This time, an Italian musician and computer technician claims to have discovered music in da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”
Giovanni Maria Pala says that by overlaying a standard five-line musical staff over the major parts of the painting, he has found musical notes in the placement of the loaves of bread and the disciples’ hands. Pala’s discovery isn’t without an historical base, either - some people have long held that da Vinci had left a piece of music in the painting, hidden from plain sight.
When Pala first drew the musical staff over the painting, the positions of the loaves and hands looked remarkably like musical notes - except that the resulting “song” made no sense. Until, that is, Pala applied da Vinci’s own idiosyncracy to it: he played it backwards.
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Every time I come to Italy I end up bringing home more Italian CDs and books - and this time is no exception. In our first shopping spree of the trip, the husband and I went to a nearby la Feltrinelli here in Milan last night and left lots of Euro later with five new CDs and six new books. I didn’t find everything I wanted in the music department, so we’ll have to go to another music store before we leave on Sunday, but what I got is a good start. I’m still a little nervous that the music I’m liking is the Italian equivalent of something I would shun at home, but I guess I’m going to have to be okay with that for now.
While the book shopping is a bit of a hit or miss thing, looking for a few selections we specifically want but then picking up other things that look interesting, the music part of the shopping spree is always quite planned out. I often listen to Radio Italia online while I’m working, and if I hear a song I like I type the words I can understand into Google and see if I can figure out who the artist is and what the song is called. More often than not, this method of song discovery is successful, so I end up with a list of artists and albums to look for. It’s a great system, and only collapses when I can’t understand the words of a song. Yesterday’s haul included three CDs by an artist called Neffa, who does a few great semi-jazzy songs that I’ve heard over the years - I think he also does some rap-ish stuff, too, so I guess we’ll see what I ended up with.
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Seeing Milan’s Duomo lit up on a clear and crisp autumn night is just about the best introduction to the city that I can imagine. The husband and I wandered around the square, looking up at the beautiful cathedral - blissfully almost entirely free of scaffolding - and just enjoying the scene. It was one of those great “sharp intake of breath” moments when we exited the Metro station, because the one we came up introduced us to the square in front of the Duomo with our backs to the famous church - so it wasn’t until we were almost at the top of the stairs that we turned and saw the lovely facade.
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I leave tomorrow for a week-long trip to Milan, and I plan to come back with all kinds of great photos and tidbits to share with you about the city and about the sights there. I’m not convinced that Milan should be on every tourist’s Italian itinerary, but if you’re stuck flying in and out of Malpensa you might as well make the most of it with at least a day spent wandering around. After a full week, I hope to be able to give you a better idea of what’s worth your time in that day and what’s not.
I’m also pleased to report that I’ve reserved a couple of chairs at one of those Home Food dinners I’ve written about before for the husband and myself, so I’ll be able to share my experience with that as well. So far, the reservation process couldn’t have been easier, and the people who run the organization have been quick to respond to my questions via email (in English!). I think it’s going to be a memorable experience, and I look forward to telling you about it.
My relationship with luggage has never been good, and I have a tendency to overpack on just about every trip. I get better with each one, but I’m still a far cry from being called a light packer. I’ve looked at the Italy weather charts and generally know what Italy in November is like, but the weather over there has been a little odd this year, to say the least. So when it came to packing for this trip, I was a bit stumped. So, I emailed one of the expat bloggers in Milan whose blogs I have bookmarked, and asked what the weather was like lately. Alex at Blog From Italy was very helpful, passing along the following advice:
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When I first started learning Italian in the spring of 2001, it was in anticipation of my first trip to Italy. Naturally, then, I focused on “survival Italian” - how to order in a restaurant, how to ask for directions, how to be generally polite to people. When I got back from that trip, after having fallen deeply in love with the country and the culture, I kept up with my studies.
Now, six years later, I’m certainly much further along in the language department than I was back then when I struggled to remember how to count to 20. But I’m also not nearly where I want to be - or where I think I should be after six years. Granted, I’m trying to learn Italian while not actually living in Italy or surrounded by the language, but still. It doesn’t help that I’m a lazy student! To counter some of that laziness, the husband and I have recently started employing a couple of tutors to get us speaking Italian more than once a week with our regular conversation group. It’s been a good exercise, especially leading up to our trip to Milan, but I find myself thinking the same thing over and over again:
I simply cannot imagine a time when I will not struggle with this language.
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In most cities, just going inside the main cathedral is a great thrill - but in Milan that’s just the beginning. In fact, an even more popular attraction than the inside of the famous Milan Duomo is the cathedral’s spire-laden roof.
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One thing the Italians seem very good at is adopting English words and giving them their own special twist. For instance, yesterday the husband and I stopped into what was billed as a “drinkeria” for an afternoon snack. You’ve heard of “pizzeria,” I imagine, and perhaps even a “gelateria.” So what’s a “drinkeria?” If you’ve figured out that adding “-eria” on to the end of a food-item word makes it a place where you’ll be able to order and eat that food item, then you’re doing just fine.
Degu’s is a “drinkeria e degustazioni,” meaning it serves light appetizer-style plates and has a wide selection of alcoholic beverages to go with them. The plates are divided up into different sections by what the focus is - meats, cheeses, fish, etc. We had a plate of crostini with lardo, a plate of a soft cheese and sausage combination served with strawberry jam, and smoked salmon with toasted biscuits covered in butter. All three were really lovely, and nicely presented, and we washed them down with a glass of champagne each. The service was quick and friendly.
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I arrived in Milan yesterday afternoon, and the husband was actually at the airport to greet me - this surprised me, as I thought he had been planning to go to the Inter/Lazio soccer game at San Siro. He quickly explained that he had gone - or at least attempted to go - but that the match was canceled, and then he explained why. (San Siro photo at left)
By now you may have already seen the news about the Lazio fan who was killed in what appears to be an accident. He’d been on his way to the match at San Siro when he and some other Lazio fans met up with some Juventus fans who were en route to a Juve game in Parma. The two groups got into a fight, and when the police arrived to try to break things up one officer evidently fired a warning shot which inadvertently killed the Lazio supporter.
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Before my upcoming trip to Milan, I looked at my flight schedule and realized I’d have a layover in Amsterdam both going to Italy and returning home. I’ve never been to Amsterdam, so I immediately tried to figure out if I’d have enough time on either layover to pop into the city for an hour or so. Sadly, it turns out I don’t, so I’ll have to make a separate trip there some other time. But in the meantime, I did get more excited about the possibility of seeing the city when I read …
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We’ve all heard the saying, “Free is a very good price.” Well, free is only a good price if you get something worth more than you’re paying for it in return. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the “Free Milan Guide” and “Free Rome Guide” put out by SAS Scandinavian Airlines.
The Italy offerings are sparse, as they only cover Milan and Rome, but I took a look at them and I have to say that while they look slick and are extremely convenient in that they’re in PDF format and downloadable/printable, they are - at best - a decent start to a travel guide. There are some choice nuggets in each guide, things you might not find in any other travel guide, but there are some big omissions, too. No visitor’s information for the famous La Scala opera house or the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping center in Milan? No details about how to get to the Colosseum or Vatican City in the Rome guide? Perhaps the assumption is that one will have a main guidebook that will include all these things, but these days travelers are more and more likely to use the internet and only have printed material guide information in small supply, so it seems silly to leave these things out.
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