We began 2026 with a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Milan on New Year’s Day. Our flight took us over the beautiful, snow-capped mountains of the Alps . It was such a clear day that even the flight crew took time to look out the windows.
Our first morning in Milan we were up early see Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, a mural painting dated to c. 1495–1498, housed in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. We knew hardly anything about this painting before coming to see it. We thought it was a painting on canvas, rather than a mural on a wall.
We didn’t realize the mural was on a wall in the refectory of a convent. Or even that a refectory is actually a dining room. We learn so much more when we travel than we ever did in school.
According to Wikipedia, “The work was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo’s patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan…Due to the methods used, a variety of environmental factors, and intentional damage, little of the original painting remains today despite numerous restoration attempts, the last being completed in 1999. The Last Supper is Leonardo’s largest work, aside from the Sala delle Asse.”
The Last Supper measures 460 cm × 880 cm (15 ft 1 in × 28 ft 10 in).
You must buy your entrance ticket in advance. We purchased ours through the app, Get Your Guide, and received an amazing explanation of the painting from our tour guide. Also, winter time seems to be off, off-season, so there were very few people around at the time. Each group entering the room is only allowed 15 minutes to view the painting and our group was very small for the size of the room.
To give you a perspective of how small our tour group was – we are standing in front of the benches in the picture above. And you can pretty much see our entire group in this picture. We’ve heard that at other times of the year this tour sells out weeks in advance, so we felt pretty lucky to be able to see this even though we bought our tickets last minute.
We also went on a walking tour around the city (also through Get Your Guide). Here are some of the sights from our tour:
“New York celebrates the power and the optimism of Wall Street with a statue of a charging bull in the Financial District of Manhattan. Milan, on the other hand, is a bit more disillusioned about the merits of the financial world. At the very centre of Piazza Affari, the square in Milan where the Italian stock exchange has its headquarters, is a marble statue depicting a hand with only its middle finger standing up.” – Atlas Obscura
One of the most famous and popular sites to visit in Milan is the “Milan Cathedral (Italian: Duomo di Milano) – The cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete: construction began in 1386, and the final details were completed in 1965. It is the largest church in the Italian Republic—the larger St. Peter’s Basilica is in the State of Vatican City, a sovereign state—and one of the largest in the world.” – Wikipedia
“The Madonnina statue atop Milan Cathedral is 4.16 meters (about 13.5 feet) tall, but stands at a height of 108.5 meters (356 feet) from the ground, serving as Milan’s iconic symbol of protection, with a tradition that no building should be taller. Made of gilded copper plates, this beloved “Little Madonna” has watched over the city since 1774.” – Wikipedia
Near the Duomo is the Gallaria Vittorio Emanuele II. “The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is Italy’s oldest active shopping arcade and a major landmark of Milan. Housed within a four-story double arcade in the centre of town, the Galleria is named after Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of the Kingdom of Italy. It was designed in 1861 and built by architect Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877.” – Wikipedia
“The historical roof was heavily damaged during the aerial bombings of World War II…The roof that we see today has gone through different historic modifications and represents complicated conservation issues.” – Wikipedia
While walking around Milan our tour guide pointed out a random (to us) bell tower. It turns out the bell tower was actually the bell tower of the Church of San Maurizio, built as part of a sturcture called The Circus – in the 3rd century A.D.!
“The bell tower of the Church of San Maurizio has a millenanan history; it was, in fact, constructed as a tower of the circus at the end of the 3rd century A.D. when Milan became the seat of the Imperial Court…At the present time, the tower is the only monumental testimony of the immense construction ordered by the Emperor Maximianus (286-305, 307-308 A.D.) to provide the city with a building suitable for entertainment such as horse and chariot races, so greatly loved by the populace…The circus of Milan, 470 metres (1,542 feet or over 500 yards) in length and 86 meters (282 feet) in width, ranked as one of the largest of the times.” – Milan Archaeological Museum
Another site our tour guide took us to were ruins unearthed nearby.
“The structures preserved here constitute one of the rare and significant testimonies of Milan’s past as the Imperial Residence, chosen as the official seat by Emperor Maximianus in 286 A.D. …this, in fact, was not a single sumptuous construction but rather a vast connected area composed of dwellings for the sovereign and his court, facilities built for recreation such as the baths, ambassadorial sections, courtyards and porticoes.” – Civico Museo Archeologico
As we walked around we were astonished by the contrast of ancient ruins set so casually among modern buildings.
As our first stop in Italy, Milan had some impressive sights. After a couple of days here we boarded a train to head off to our next adventure.
Hello Lovebirds! That is a good start for the New Year… going to Milan, Italy!
Thank you for sharing Milan’s interesting historical aspects especially Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper Mural on the wall. Historians and scholars say there is very strong evidence Leonardo was gay and his lover was his assistant for many years until he passed!
Loved all the pictures. Learning new things with every posting…..such as The Last Supper is a mural!
Love this post! I hope to get to Milan in the Fall 🙂