Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games - Olympic Day 3 (Milan)

February 9

One agreement that we made many years ago is that at each Olympics we have to take time out to see stuff that is not Olympic related. Today is our only day off from attending competitions so we are off to see the Duomo, the huge cathedral in the center of Milan. We were expecting that the subways would be busy with people going to work so we left with plenty of time to spare to get through security before the start of our 10 AM tour. But there were hardly any people on the metro and we arrived in the piazza di Duomo more than an hour ahead of time! The Olympic superstore, located in the piazza doesn't open until 9:30 AAM so we decide to walk all the way around the Duomo and take some pictures of the outside along with a better picture of the Galleria di Emanuella II:

The Duomo is built in an architectural style called Flamboyant Gothic. In 355 CE, there was a church at this site and a basilica was added about 500 years later. When both burned in 1075, 

they were rebuilt as the Duomo. But in 1386, Archbishop Saluzzo started construction of a new cathedral on the same site. It would not be completed until 1965! It was interesting that even though construction stalled for long periods of time and Gothic architecture gave way to Renaissance architecture, they still kept building in the same style. It is hard to express just how huge this cathedral is. It took us a good 15 minutes to walk all the way around! It is the largest cathedral in Italy - St. Peters is bigger, but it is actually in Vatican City, not in Italy.

We get to the elevator that will take us up to the roof for the beginning of the tour, but we are still 45 minutes ahead of time. Beth decides to ask one of the security people if we can go in early. She takes a look at the number of people in line and waves us ahead. After going through security, we get on an elevator that will take us up to the terraces on the roof. But the elevator first drops us at a level even with the top of the perimeter walls. There are a lot of statues up here! These pictures will give you an idea of the different styles:

No idea who these people are, but we have what looks like Greeks, Romans and more traditional Italians. Here are a couple more views from this level:

You can see that every single spire is different. We also see places where some of these spires have been removed, cleaned and replaced. There was some scaffolding up for repairs on the west side of the Duomo and even more on the eastern side. We guess that there are just so many elements up here that there are always some parts that need to be cleaned or repaired.

After we've walked most of the way along one wall, we turn left and start walking up stairs to the terraces. Here is the view:

This is supposed to be the place to get a great view of Milano, but it is quite foggy so we can't see much. Beth's guidebooks say that WW II Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is supposed to have his head up here somewhere, but we can't find it. Going downstairs to the cathedral is a lot harder on our knees, but we finally make it down. On the way down, we collected a few pictures of gargoyles and other strange critters:

At the point where the stairway enters into the cathedral, we see this statue of Gian Giacomo Medici:

of the famous Medici family who were very influential in northern Italy during the 15th century. We think that he is here because of money that his family contributed to the construction of the Duomo in the 15th and 16th century. 

Steve is a sucker for stained glass, so let's do those pictures first:

At first, we were a little confused because these stained-glass windows did not look like those from the 15th and 16th centuries based on what we learned while in Paris in 2024. We looked in the guidebook, and it indicated that all of the windows were replaced with painted glass starting in the 16th century although there is one window that still has stained-glass from the 15th century.

Here are our other pictures from the cathedral:

We hope that a couple of these pictures give you an idea of how big this cathedral is. It is said to have a capacity of 40,000 people! There is one thing that we wanted to show you but could not. In the late 18th century, a small hole was put in the roof of the west end of the cathedral, and a meridian line was laid across the floor. When the sun shines, a ray of light falls on the meridian line when it is solar noon. In the olden days, someone would see the image of the sun cross the meridian line and would signal a nearby tower who would relay the signal to the Sforza Castle where a cannon would be fired to indicate that it was noon. In addition, the place along the meridian where the image of the sun crosses indicates the month. In 1976, Architects and Astronomers exampled the meridian line and calculated that the maximum error on the time of solar noon was 2 seconds! Unfortunately, there was no sun visible today.

We went out onto the piazza and decided that we would walk over to see how long the line to get into the superstore was. It was about double the length of the other day and we decided that we didn't want anything in there bad enough to stand in line for 30 minutes. As we walked back, Steve watched for people who might be interested in trading pins but saw no one.

He was just remarking that it was amazing that he could walk across such a crowded piazza and not have anyone want to trade pins when a guy came up to us and asked Steve if he was willing to be interviewed by Xfinity (Comcast). This is not the first time that this has happened, so he agreed. The interviewer asked Steve about how he came to have so many pins while the director made sure that we were standing in the right place and the camera and sound were ready. Then the interviewer asked Steve three questions. The first one was what has been Steve's favorite Olympic moment in Milano. Steve answered that seeing Francesca Lollobrigida win a gold medal (Italy's first) and set a personal best at the same time was his favorite moment. The second question was if Steve could get a gold medal in anything, what would it be. He thought for a second and said that he'd like to win a gold medal in being a good Olympic ambassador for the US. The last question was what Winter Olympic Sport would you like to do. Steve said bobsled. The interviewer asked if someone looked at Steve, would they think that Steve would be good at bobsled. Steve laughed and said absolutely not. Most of the successful bobsled athletes are shaped like football middle linebackers. After that, Steve was asked to sign a release saying that I would not sue Xfinity and we were on out way.

The rest of the day was much less eventful. Steve was not feeling great (lack of both sleep and food) so we went back to the hotel so that Steve could lay down for a while and then work on the blog while Beth went to the local laundromat to wash some of our clothes.

Tomorrow, we are off to short-track speed skating. Enjoy!