“If nothing ever gets done, it’s like the cathedral of Milan.” I heard a Milanese lady whisper while taking my awe walk in sneakers. She wore the epitome outfit, fit for the city described as a fashion capital – simple and elegant. I could hear her heals hitting the cobblestones as she paraded past me. I had to smile, because everything worth-while, naturally takes time.
The metropolis, which Giorgio Armani referred to as: “Strong, fearless, but welcoming too…” is probably bang on and the proper description of this gastronomic and fashionable city. Between the psychic at the Statua di Leanardo da Vinci and the Gallaria Vittorio Emanuele II, I was in a childlike utopia twirling on Cloud Nine.
I first heard the word “Milan” in the school hall of an all-girls school, which I attended as a teenager. Reading and paging the Vogue magazine on a regular basis, to stay up to date, Milan became a word synonymous with words such as elegance, class and picturesque. Since High School, there was only one thing that I had to do – to see the cathedral of Milan. This is not only the tallest building in Italy, but it is something that Mary Shelly herself described as “magical”. You do not have to say much more to grab a reader’s attention.
I cajoled my cousin to travel with me, and luckily, she took the invitation. We would travel in style and see and do it all. On day one, I completed my speedwalk time in a new personal best. And yes, I cried when we walked onto the open square where all tourists, influencers and pigeons gathered. This lodestar took more than six-hundred years to complete. Impressive – to say the least. Thinking back, I will never be able to capture the sight in words or pictures – but I can write my thoughts:
The writer of Frankenstein probably also stood on the cathedral’s rooftop and saw the vastness of Italy and looked down to the details ebbed in every corner of the Duomo. She understood the assignment: there has to be equilibrium. Ambition will not lead to self-destruction when caution and compassion are positioned opposite on the balance beam. Accept both with equanimity.
Sanding on the Duomo di Milano, I could not hear heels stomping or people babbling. It was magical, breathtaking and reaching into every realm of consciousness. In that moment, I felt like Icarus. But then I heard Frankenstein’s whisper and looked at the sun. Nothing ever gets done, by looking at the cathedral of Milan.