Una Buona Notte

September 8, 2018 (Part III)

The Duomo at Night

It was 9:00 p.m. and everyone else was down for the count, but I still wasn’t tired, so I decided to use the evening to photo-nerd out in the Piazza del Duomo and take some night pictures. The square was still packed when I got there, and the atmosphere could not have been more interesting and eclectic. A sidewalk bar near the entrance to the Galleria was blasting EDM unnecessarily loud. As I walked around the Duomo, I first came across an old man sitting on the southern side, playing “Hey Jude” on an acoustic guitar and singing . . . in Italian. On the opposite side of the Duomo was a young guy with crazy hair playing Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” on an old-school AC/DC-style electric guitar. The sky above the Piazza was filled with small, flashing blue lights - twirly birds, being thrown 100+ feet into the air to impress tourists and sucker them into a purchase for their kids. The Piazza itself was filled with an interesting mix of people. There were the Milanese teenagers hanging out because that’s the cool thing to do (sure beats the Wal-Mart and Tinseltown parking lots used in the US), the young Asian tourists (always girls, in pairs, taking an absurd number of pictures in ridiculous poses with the Duomo as the backdrop), the serious photographers shuffling their tripods from side to side, and the social ladder climbers coming back from the cheap ballet seats at La Scala, but needing to stop and take the obligatory, “I got dressed up and did something sophisticated” picture. And still, I loved it. It was oddly serene, and it felt like I had made it home after an exorbitantly long vacation. There’s something ethereal and soothing about seeing the massive facade of the Duomo lit up and towering over the nothingness and blackness behind it. On the walk back to the hotel, I found a tiny gelato shop and had to stop to get some stracciatella for my evening stroll.