Milan

In 1979 I stopped off in Milan for a day while traveling north on my way to catch a plane home out of Luxemburg. Since I had only a short time I headed off to see the Last Supper. When I arrived, the entrance to the building was unattended and wide open, I walked in and stood in front of the fresco with not a single person nearby. I had the painting all to myself.

I returned to the city a few years ago but this time I was able to spend more than a day. The cathedral (Duomo di Milano) was surrounded by scaffolding to support the workers who were busy removing 100 years of industrial grime. Air pollution no longer seems to be a factor in the daily lives of big city dwellers and the legacy of the age of smoke would soon be removed. From what I could see, the cathedral would soon become a pristine, white, gothic masterpiece restored to the way it must have looked before the early 20th century. To my eyes, the cathedral lost its character. I didn't bother to revisit the Last Supper.