The reason we came

This hotel may become my favorite if they keep bringing me hot chocolate like this for breakfast. It's like drinking hot fudge.

The main reason for the stop in Milan was to view the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. If you want to see it - you HAVE to pre-book about 4 to 6 weeks ahead of time. About 7 weeks ago, at the end of May, I got online and purchased tickets for the four of us to see the famous masterpiece. Boom, done. Last night as I was making sure I knew where I was going in the morning, I realized that I did not have tickets to see the Last Supper. *@$#& We had tickets to visit the Pinoteca de Brera. *$%@# I don't know Italian but I should have known the difference between the Pinoteca de Brera and Santa Maria delle Grazie.

In a panic, we got up early and presented ourselves at the ticket counter (at Santa Maria della Grazie) in front of a prominent sign that said 'SOLD OUT FOR TWO WEEKS'. I explained my idiocy to the man at the counter and he pointed to a bench and said, "Sit there for 10 minutes". Was that my punishment? Were they bringing the dunce cap?

After a few moments he called me back up and said that he could get 4 tickets for the 2:45 - 3:00 time. SWEET!!! (I don't know what happened because we watched him turn every other tourist away.)

Since we had tickets we figured we ought to visit the Pinoteca, although we had no idea what we were in for. Turns out that it was a former Jesuit college and now houses the most 'important art in Italy'. Yay for us. Works dating from the 13, 14 and 1500's by artists like Tintorreto, Mantegna and Raphael are housed inside. The building was beautiful.

It rained most of the morning so our indoor visit was perfectly timed. Lunch was pizza that was WAY too big but we ate it anyway. We should have taken the utensils and the table cloth after paying the 2 Euro per person table fee. Ridiculous.

We had a little extra time before our 2:45 viewing of the Last Supper so we did a little shopping:

And we did some other productive things:

Da Vinci's Last Supper is actually painted on the wall of the refectory of a church. It's amazing that it's still viewable as over the years it's been used to house the fire department and during WWII the building was even hit by a bomb. Somehow it manages to take your breath away. Photos are not permitted but here is one of a poster outside of the refectory and one of the Santa Maria delle Grazie church.

I don't know what happened with the tickets, but somehow the impossible was done. Now we can leave Milan with our heads held high and make our way to the Cinque Terre.