It is very hot. It was 91 degrees throughout the afternoon. We were outside. Conceding the sweat. Seeking out water where we could. (We could not find enough of either.) Trying to hide in the shade. Have you figured it out yet? Where we are? Here’s one last hint. This is the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie.

So, if you haven’t guessed, we are in Milan, Italy. (But only until tomorrow.)

We took a Tesla Uber to get there. The basilica, of course, not Milan. No way I’d stay in that car long enough for a real trip. What a stupid car on the inside. Just a blank interior and a giant distracting screen with a UI that looks like it came from a cheap Canadian dystopian sci-fi show.

Both the car and this church are places I hadn’t ever thought of experiencing — some things you just don’t ever contemplate. For the former, I was grateful we only went a short distance and not over water or that the driver didn’t use the self-drive murder mode in our short trip. For the latter, it just didn’t seem a place I’d ever get the chance to see. Never something I’d considered trying. Not a goal. It was not unobtainable, just never on the radar.

Sort of like pedestrians, to the famous Teslers sensors.

Outside the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie, we were given tickets. Inside, we had to display our passports. Then we went through an air filtration system — or so they said. And then, in another room, there it was, The Last Supper.

Leonardo da Vinci painted it from 1495–1498, in the refectory of the Convent, using a tempera fresco technique as both an experiment and an expediency to logistics. It is a fast-drying style, permanent in the sense that it doesn’t allow for alterations, but temporary as it relates to time. (Two early copies of The Last Supper are known to exist, thought to have been done by Leonardo’s assistants. The copies have survived with a lot of their original detail. One is in Switzerland, the other in Belgium.)

Today’s venerable works were once just things on walls. The room has been used as a stable, a hospital (during WWI) and a dining hall. At one point, in 1652, they cut a door in that wall, and through da Vinci’s representation of Jesus’ feet, to create a direct path to the kitchen. Late in the 16th century, the painting was considered all but ruined. The first restoration was attempted in 1726. However that went, a few decades later a curtain was installed, meant to protect the painting. Instead, it trapped moisture, and whenever the curtain was pulled, it scratched the flaking paint. Because of the way da Vinci painted it, much of what we see today is not original.

So the filtration process is amusing. But there you are. You walk through that one glass door from the filtration room and suddenly you’re confronted with the work of a master.

There’s also a display for the visually impaired.

The mural has gone through a series of more successful restorations over the years. A man named Luigi Cavenaghi was an innovator of his time. He worked on it from 1903 to 1908. At the time, apparently, addressing external factors (like the room, or the building) was a revolutionary idea.

One of Cavenaghi’s students, the self described failed painter Mauro Pellicioli, updated the restorations after World War II. He, again, updates the methods used for work on the famed wall. (During the war it was covered in sandbags as a precaution.) Pellicioli would become one of Italy’s most important restorers. Some of the most famous works you can see have experienced his work.

Later, Pelliciloli’s student, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon was tasked with the most recent restoration. It was the 1980s by then, and the art of restoration had become a science. She removed older glazes, and did much of the work that we see today.

On the wall, opposite is a painting by Milan native Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, descendant from a family of painters. His depiction of the Crucifixion (1495) is his best known work.

This fresco is believed to have some figured painted by da Vinci, as well.

We left Renaissance Milan, taking a bus from the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie (which was constructed between 1465 and 1482). Here’s our parting view.

In retrospect, we could have taken those scooters.

We went over to La Scala, but the famed 18th century opera house wasn’t accepting tours. Odd, considering the many, many, tourists milling about. So we sat in the shade of the piaza until it was time for our tour of the Duomo di Milano.

The Milan Cathedral is beautiful, if you like the gothic renaissance style.

They started work here in 1386, and just finished the work in 1965. It supposedly seats 40,000. I wouldn’t know. The tour turned out to be a bust. We started on the roof, which was unimpressive. We came from the back left, across the front and down on the right side. When we got inside the cathedral told the tour, “Non oggi.” Not today. It seems there was an event scheduled for the afternoon, and our tour company can’t or didn’t check the cathedral’s event calendar.

What you can see from the back of one of the large parts of the church hinted that we missed a lot.

Someone else who was on the tour said he’d been on it before. He said we saw nothing compared to what we should have been able to see.

We’ll be getting a refund.

Took a cab back to the hotel. Cooled down in a restaurant that was conveniently located across the street. Settled in early, hoping that, this, day two, would be the end of the jet lag. Tomorrow, we are traveling by train.