Si, siamo arrivati!

Friday 6 September

Missed a day blogging. Currently 6.00 a.m. here - been awake since about 3 a.m.

We arrived in Milano yesterday morning pretty much on time - about 8.30 a.m. Waited FOR AGES for our bags to appear; and as fewer and fewer bags arrive on the conveyer belt, you can't help that sinking feeling that yours are anywhere but in Milan.

They duly arrived and we massaged our way through the throngs of people to the Malpensa line for the train to central Milan which is about 50 kms away.

The queue to the ticket window stretched like a centipede for miles - not surprising as there was a singleton cashier only. And there was chaos around the automatic ticket booths. Welcome to Italy.

I put My Friend in the queue while I negotiated with the machine and after 2 attempts got tickets. We managed to catch the train waiting at the platform but I forgot to validate the bloody ticket so spent the next 10 minutes in a sweat rehearsing in Italian what to say to the conductor. No problem - amazing how saying sorry & looking stupid (plus possibly using the lingo) gets you out of trouble. Mi dispiace, ma non lo so; non ho convalidato il mio biglietto (Bill: actually I stuffed up the verb "to validate" and it came out something like "valigiato" Arrrrh. Stupid tourist!).

Anyway, then we stuffed around like stupid mutts at Milano Centrale railway station (the place was seething with millions of people!) looking for the left-luggage (bagagli deposito), got a map ( from a very cranky woman at the tourist booth on the station). Found the Metro (after walking more circles for half an hour), then joined an amaaaaazing queue at a tabacchio to buy tickets for the train - il mio dio, what a system! Fortunately the two people behind the counter had a most pleasant disposition.

So, we arrived alle fine (= "eventually") at the famous Duomo. Always a magnificent sight! I have never been inside so, after a wander through the gorgeous shopping mall of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (think Prada, Vuitton - we gave these stores only the briefest of passing glances), we visited this lovely Gothic cathedral (and My Friend played with his new camera).

We had a coffee at one of the innumerable cafes (and I remembered the system: pay at the cashier first then go to the counter to order); we had 2 wonderful cappuccini - standing at the counter, Italiano-style - for €1.40 each!

We walked through the hot sun to via (= "street") Spadali and found a nice pescheria where My Friend ordered himself a fishburger con bibita; I'd forgotten what this meant but for a little extra, he received a small glass of prosecco. Very nice. Then further down the street, we found the famous Gelateria Passerini where we bought yummy gelati.

Very hot. Made our way back to the Metro & now, being experts, we travelled without any problems back to Milano Centrale, bought our train tickets to Padova, collected our bags, and had an uneventful two hours travelling on one of the Trenitalia trains (that despite being only a local train, speeds along at 150 kms/hr!!!). Eat your heart out Albury-Wodonga!

In Padova we exited the station on the WRONG side and only found this out after I had carried both bags up two flights of stairs (to help poor little 'ole Andrew). Arrrrgh! (the stairs, not My Friend).

Anyway, we alle fine found the buses & after passing our stop, we alle fine arrived at our B&B only to find no-one there (apparently, they had sent me an email AFTER we had left Australia requesting we call them an hour before arriving). We called the girl who is apparently looking after the B&B whilst the owner is in vancanze (I suppose these people have to have a holiday SOME time!) & My Friend went off to buy a beer which we drank sitting on the doorstep waiting for the girl to arrive and passed the time watching people cycling by on their way home from work. Fortunately it was not too hot now and the beer tasted good.

Our room is just like a room at home: nothing flash; just comfortable and in a pleasant neighbourhood. It's all we want and will be good for the 3 nights we are here.

It now being about 6.30 p.m., we talked about what to do about dinner. After a shower and rinsing out our clothes, we decided to walk into town even though we were both getting close to melt-down stage (I could have as easily just gone to bed).

It turned out to be a good call. A short walk later we found ourselves in a pretty area with covered walkways, a bit like in Bologna (although not as grand) & there were great numbers of cyclists (and very few cars!) tearing along bike lanes along the cobbles going home towered over by the immense Basilica di Sant'Antonio.

We didn't make it into town. We enjoyed this area so much, we stayed - and wandered into a bar which was frequented by locals, pointed to what one couple were having, ordered that and enjoyed a lovely sparkling wine which came accompanied by a dish of sliced baguette with pieces of ham. Very civilised.

Dinner looked like not happening as My Friend was starting to nod off (and I certainly wasn't go to waste money going out only to have him with his face in a bowl of food!), so we wandered along and found an enoteca/salumeria with some lovely salads and another grocer who still had fresh bread at this time of day and we had ourselves a very nice meal back at our B&B.

I fell asleep waiting for the kettle to boil for a cuppa....