We’re in central Milan, inside Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, trying to find something to eat. From the floor of the Galleria, we could look up and see a place where people were enjoying themselves and having lunch. We wanted to be where they were, doing what they were doing, but we couldn’t figure out how to get there.
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is an elegant covered shopping mall. Built 150 years ago, it was one of the world’s first shopping malls, and it was the first to use the word, “galleria,” in its name. (Vittorio Emanuele II was the first King of the Kingdom of Italy. We’ll catch up with him later).
For Good Luck, Do This…
A beautiful iron-and-glass roof covers the open space in the galleria. It must have been an architectural wonder when it was built. Besides the magnificent roof, the galleria is also known for a mosaic of the Turin Coat of Arms built into the floor.
But this is no ordinary mosaic. It’s said to have magic powers. There’s a well-endowed bull in the mosaic. To tap into the mosaic’s magic powers, put one heel squarely on the bull’s “testicoli,” close your eyes, and spin around three times. This action, if performed correctly, brings good luck. From the looks of it, there’ve been a great many lucky tourists here over the years.
Ciao!
We eventually found the place where we’d seen people having lunch. The name of the restaurant was “Ciao.” We found out later that Ciao is a restaurant chain with locations all over Italy. Ciao restaurants are cafeteria-style buffets. You grab a tray, choose what you want to eat, pay, find a seat, and mangia.
It must be popular, because the place was packed inside. We didn’t have a lot of other options, so in we went. We immersed ourselves in a swarm of hungry bodies, having no clue what we were doing. The good news was that there was tons of food, and everything looked good.
We walked around eyeing everything. They had an amazing array of food to choose from – a salad station, a soup station, a meat carving station, pasta – tons of stuff. When something looked really good, we grabbed it and put it on our tray. Then we made our way to the line for the cashier. I was hoping there’d be silverware on the other side of the cashier, because we didn’t have any yet. (There was).
Seating was family style, with chairs lined up at long tables. The eating area was packed. We found two vacant spots in the middle of a large group of German tourists. They’d been saving two seats for their friends, but we were there, and their friends weren’t, so they said to come and sit down.
The Germans were fun. A few of them spoke English. We were laughing because none of us knew what we were doing, but at least we’d all made it out of the maze of food. They’d have been a fun group to have a few steins of beer with.
A Short Walk in Milan
Our next stop is a museum called “Pinacoteca Ambrosiana.” It’s not the most famous museum in Milan, but it seems to be special. And there’s something there that I’d especially like to see.
It’s just a short walk from the Galleria to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. Short, but tricky. As you can see in the map, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana is very close to Piazza del Duomo. But as you may also be able to see, the streets between the two places run in all kinds of crazy directions.
In fact, if you ask Siri or Alexa how to get from Piazza del Duomo to Pinacoteca Ambrosiana by foot, you’ll get the instructions shown here. Read those seven steps. Are you kidding me? I don’t think that’s going to happen!
We’re close enough to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana that I could almost throw a rock and hit it from here, but there’s no way we’re going to get there by trying to find all of those streets.
My preferred method is to start walking in the believed-to-be-correct general direction and hope for the best. That’s what we did. This was risky on my part. It had already been a long day, so I couldn’t afford to get us lost now.
If you’ve been following along, you know we started this morning in Bellagio, took the boat to Varenna and the train to Milan. We took the Metro to Piazza del Duomo, visited Sforza Castle, took a tour bus to Santa Maria delle Grazie to see the Last Supper, and returned to Piazza del Duomo. If we don’t see Pinacoteca Ambrosiana after just a few turns, I could be in trouble.
Peck
As we worked our way through the rat’s nest of streets, we stopped at some windows where the most amazing array of food was on display. We had stumbled onto a store called “Peck.” London has the food department in Herrod’s. Paris has Fauchon. And Milan has Peck. We had to go in, just to look around.
Ooooo… unbelievable meat department, bakery, sweets, wine shop, food-to-go. The veggies were so perfect that they didn’t look real. Did I mention the chocolate department? We just ate, but I’m getting hungry all over again. Where was it we were going??
To be continued…
Just for fun…
Testicoli – male genitalia, cojones, nuts, etc…
Ciao – hello, hi, good-bye, see you later, etc…
