Fish and Focaccia

And welcome back. Apologies about the increasing amount of time between posts. I will endeavor to post somewhat more regularly over the next few weeks! I am also going to have a shot at a new template for these blogs from now on. I'm not totally loving sticking a whole pile of photos down the bottom, so I'll be uploading less photos to the blogs and placing more in some albums on Facebook, which I will endeavor to make links to as often as necessary. If you're not Facebook friends with me and want access to the photos, shoot me a message/friend request and let me know! 

I left off after returning from Prali. The next three days were pretty much bucketing down with rain, so I didn't get up to all that much aside from walking the dog and making one or two trips down to the shops/swimming pools. I did however manage one 3 hour long walk from the Duomo back home, after getting lost in a few side streets. This did give me a cool opportunity to check out L'arco della Pace, one of the attractions in Milan that I was yet to see. Most of my activities really kicked off later in the week- Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday I went on a big tour of some of the outer parts of Milan and it's many churches. I went with one of Pietro's grandmas, who was really excited to show me around! We visited 3 churches, all of which were incredible. One was a small catholic church connected to a university. The other two, however, were spectacular. The Basilisca di Sant'Ambrogio, and La Chiesa di San Vittore al Corpo. San Vittore was awesome- massive high roofs covered with century old paintings of saints and cherubim. There are an assortment of chapels off either side of the aisles, consisting of things like baptism chambers for babies and crypts for some old saints who were buried there. There was a massive dome in the middle of the church opening up to the sky, which lit up in a myriad of colors every time the sun peeked through the clouds. Incredible church. Not like anything I could have ever dreamed of back home. The second, somewhat larger church was Sant'Ambrogio. It had suffered heavy damage over the course of WW2 and has since been restored. We were greeted by the chiming of the bell tower and an almost empty courtyard. We weren't aware that the church had actually been set up for a wedding, which was set to take place within the hour. We were still allowed to enter the main church and look through though, which was awesome- especially seeing as it had been all decorated for the wedding! Similar chapels and crypts were lain off either side of the aisle, with a small museum open off to the side. Much to my good fortune we were allowed up on to the altar- this isn't usually allowed at all, but the lady I was with knew the Father (Priest) who was overseeing the procession, and convinced him to allow me to go up and take a look! The main altar was solid gold, covered with a thick sheet of glass to prevent any wandering hands. Just underneath the altar lay the crypt of Sant'Amrogio himself, who died 397 AD. His body had been placed in a glass crypt, so you could literally still see the skeletal remains of the saint adorned in all his relics. Crazy to imagine how long that body has been sitting there. Following the trip to both of these churches, we checked out a museum just before it closed up for the day, which was full of old Roman relics, as well as a sarcophagus of a long deceased Templar. I don't have many photos of either church- partly because I was enjoying being there so much that I couldn't be bothered thinking about my camera, and partly because I'm still learning how to make it stop with the 'click' noise after every photo. Seriously not awesome in the middle of quiet wedding preparations! Down the street were a few stores, one of which worth mentioning as it featured THE SCARIEST MANNEQUINS I HAVE EVER SEEN. 

A painting in one of the churches. Noah's ark now featuring
UNICORNS. 

This will haunt my dreams. 

The next day we made our way up to Genova, an old fishing town off the western coast. We spent most of our day going through L'aquario di Genova (The Aquarium of Genova), the largest aquarium in Europe. They had a pile of messed up fish, like on that shoots flashing lights out of it's anus when it feels threatened, and a pile of those long, serpenty, messed up fish things that appear in a pile of bad joke memes. Pretty sure it was like a Moray Eel or something close. The Aquarium was actually quite nice. Towards the exit were a pile of open water tanks which you could dip your hands in to and attempt to 'pet' the fish. There were literally no safety regulations. I couldn't help but wonder how many kids have lent to far over and fallen in, or the amount of phones that must get fished out of their daily. 

- Oh yeah. A fishy pun. Enjoy it. -

One of the penguins pretending to be Jesus.
Jesus penguin died for our sins. 

After the Aquarium we spent some time touring Genova. The streets there are tiny- you could barely fit two people shoulder to shoulder. Small streets and anus fish aside though, these guys had awesome Focaccias. Some cheese, some onion, some plane and salted. Seriously good Focaccias. 10/10 would eat again. Saturday night I went with Pietro to one of his friend's eighteenths. I don't know if you recall from my second blog entrance how I was massively disappointed that a free style Italian rap battle didn't break out at the school I visited? Well, it totally happened at this party. Video to come. 

Genova. I wish the sun was out for this.

Sunday morning was mostly a sleeping fest. We went to another art show around midday, which was also quite cool. This was an older one full of Renaissance-era paintings. Some of the paintings were easily 2 x 5 meters, covering entire walls. One of my favorite ones I spent a good half an hour just sitting in front of. Cristina, the mother of the family I am staying with, bought me a book at the entrance that has information on every wing and painting in this gallery. We didn't end up making it through the entire gallery- having spent 3 hours wandering through we still hadn't seen everything but were quickly running out of time! Again, not too many photos of this, seeing as cameras weren't allowed in the gallery. We stopped by a few stores on the way back, and I totally bought pizza from a guy in a fez. Plans for the rest of the week are to catch a train down to Florence, spend a few days backpacking through there, then on to Pisa, and then Assisi. Looking forward to seeing what backpacking is really like! 

My newly claimed boat, docked in Genova.
♫ Yarr harr, sing it with me, being a pirate is alright with me!
Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free... ♫
♫ YOU ARE A PIRATE! 

Ciao for now!