Yesterday I visited the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in central Milan. It is a large museum with a wide range of technology-related exhibits, although I was only there for the three museum ships:1. Enrico Toti - a small post-war Italian built and designed submarine, which is mounted on stocks in the museum grounds. The submarine is well-maintained and everything is good condition. Access inside the museum is limited to those who have booked guided tours with an 'interpreter' (but note they don't tell you this when you enter the museum, and it is a ten-minute walk back to the museum entrance to buy the extra ticket when you find out). As you would expect, the guided tours are in Italian, but the guide had a lot to say, so I am guessing they were reasonably detailed. The submarine itself was very interesting - pretty much every diesel-electric submarine I have ever been on (British, Russian, French, German or Japanese) has had a pretty standard layout - to the extent if it wasn't for the language of the signage, it wouldn't be that easy to tell them apart! But Toti is different - being a much smaller ship they had to make different design choices.2. WW2 explosive motorboat - the type that sank HMS York - this was inside in the 'air and water' pavilion, and again in good condition.3. Maile - also in the 'air and water' pavilion, and placed so damned close to the MAS boat that it was hard to get good pictures of either of them.Other exhibits of interest included a 3.5" AA gun from the battleship Andrea Doria, and a couple of 12" shells from Viribus Unitis.This model of including museum ships within the scope of a much larger national institution seems to work pretty well. The museum appears to be well-funded, the exhibits are well-looked after, and they had large numbers of visitors. The downside was the well-stocked museum shop had virtually nothing available for sale relevant to these exhibits, because they are such a small element of a much larger subject matter.Highly recommended, and well-worth the visit - it had the extra benefit of giving me an excuse not to join yet another Cathedral tour!
