Just a short walk from the madness on Via Monte Napoleone of clammering fashionistas & the…read morePaparazzi of Milan fashion week lies a national treasure. OK, so my cultural compass is not always true but on the odd occasion it will align and this was one of those moments. My normal mode is alcoholautopilot and on this flight I was navigating between the Centro Historico backstreet Cafe Bars in my quest for Alicia Lini 910 and happened to notice a rather magnificent arch to my right. As i glanced over, i saw a courtyard within. Curiosity beckoned and i strolled through to see what was thither and lo and behold ... I had wandered in to a place oozing history and magnificence combined with art and horticulture and knowledge. This is a location you will have to revisit many times in order to see everything that resides here. For those seeking a snort of culture then this is a 'Four-fer'....You have; Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense (One of Italy's largest state libraries) c1770 Pinacoteca di Brera (Brera Art Gallery) c1776 Accademia de Belle Arti c1776 Orto Botanico di Brera (historic botanical garden) c1774 As for me, trying to describe what you will see here well .... erm .... in this case a picture is definitely worth a million words so let the camera speak ....

This tiny bookstore is chock full of books and if you're dazzled by Prada and Versace, you'd miss…read morethis place. That would be a mistake. The Bocca bookstore opened in Turin in 1775. Yes, that 1775. It is likely one of the oldest bookstores anywhere. It was originally a chain of bookstores with others in Paris and Florence and Rome and Turin, but today only the Milan location remains. And in fact is only here in the Galleria Victtorio Emmanuele II because the people petitioned the government for it to remain. Thank you, Milanese, for recognizing how important books and reading are to humanity! This is a small shop and it is quite full. Some of the custom art is very expensive (look through the glass in the floor tiles) but there are many books here that are quite normally priced. And yes, some even in English. How cool is that! [Review 10691 overall, 459 of 2019.]

I stood there and wished that I could read Italian. So many…read morebooks in this tiny bookshop. Only in business for 250 years. Amazing.

Everybody heads to "The Last Supper" while in Milan but I liked this museum much more. For fans of…read moreda Vinci here are some reasons to head here: 'Portrait of a Musician": unfinished da Vinci painting, his only known male portrait and to me has a similar emblematic and mysterious facial expression as the Mona Lisa. There was a printed Last Supper mural in this room that everyone was taking photos of and ignoring this real da Vinci! Codex Atlanticus: Collection of writings and drawings by da Vinci. There are scans online but they have been recolored blue so you could see them better but nothing can beat the well-lit originals where you can see finer details, erase marks, and small mistakes. The pages rotate every 6 months so you can see new pages. Whole I was visiting there were oages on mayh, machinery, and gears. Museum was founded in 1618 and has 24 rooms. You can easily spend an hour and a half here minimum. If you buy the dual ticket there is a crypt right at the museum exit you can also go to though that is much faster than the museum. Here are some other things I enjoyed: Caravaggio Basket of Fruit: painted on an empty background, I'm not sure if this was the intent but it makes the painting more timeless and draws the eye to the detail on the plate of fruit. The apple is rotting and the leaves have bits of decay, the grapes are opaque but have an amazing translucent quality to them. Napolean Bonaparte gloves: made from buckskin and worn by Napolean at his definitive defeat at Waterloo. I love how casually these are displayed in the box they were gifted to the museum in. Dolce and Gabbana da Vinci clock recreation: mechanical and functioning, created from a da Vinci sketch. The building itself is red brick and stunning from the outside. You can see different masonry techniques from different eras and the imperfections in alignment and depth give it a nice human touch.

4.5 and rounded up. For a smaller museum, it packs a punch! I purchased this ticket in combination…read morewith the Duomo cathedral, rooftop and Duomo Museum for €35,50, which was a good value since individual tickets for this place are €15. Since it's located a short walk (10ish minutes if you aren't really familiar with the area) away from the Duomo Museum, I came here toward the end of the day after also visiting the Palazzo Reale. There's something about antique and unique libraries that draws you in. Taking in the sights, sounds, smells of tomes older than most buildings in Manhattan, and the architectural details of the spaces they are housed in--knowledge and history come alive. In the case of this museum, the 12 volumes of the Codex Atlanticus are housed here, which are the most extensive compilation of writings and drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, compiled posthumously by sculptor Pompeo Leoni in the late 16th-early 17th centuries. By combining some of da Vinci's loose notes and pages from notebooks onto large-dimension paper, used to print atlases at the time, the compilation became known as the Codex Atlanticus. Subjects covered by da Vinci fall into the categories of: 1) geometry and algebra, 2) physical and natural sciences, 3) tools and machines, 4) architecture and applied arts, 5) human sciences. Aside from above, there are a few other noteworthy displays of art by mostly Italian masters, da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli and Caravaggio included, with a couple Dutch painters like Brueghel and Bosch sprinkled in. Arriving at close to 4pm on a Saturday, it was a bit rushed to try and get thru everything in roughly 45 minutes (they start to usher people out starting around 15min before the museum closed), though the floor plans and direction of exhibits were pretty straightforward--the exhibits start on the second floor and you make your way down back to the first floor again. The exit of the museum is separate from the entrance so it took a few minutes to walk back around.