Italy Trip, Thursday-Friday, July 20-21 (Day 1-2)

It’s hard to know how to separate the travel day from my first day in Milan, so I’m combining them. Feel free to skim, I know this gets a bit long. Or just skip to the pictures down below. 🙂

Travel started with Denise picking me up right on time. The trip to the airport was leisurely and she dropped me off with plenty of time to spare. I’ve been getting TSA PreCheck pretty consistently on my flights and this was no exception, so after I checked my bag, getting through security was a breeze.

The trip was now starting to seem real. I was feeling so comfortable with my routine at home that it was hard to imagine breaking that, and for such a big trip! This is my first trip to Europe. I had planned the 10-day hiking trip in the Italian Lakes district with Active Adventures, but since the trip was starting in Milan, I couldn’t imagine going all that way and not seeing any of the city. So I arranged two nights on my own in a pretty central area so I can walk places and spend time taking pictures.

At DFW, I had enough time to get some breakfast, but not enough to grab a Starbucks’ hot chocolate, which is my usual, so I roughed it without. 🙂 The 3hr, 40 minute flight to JFK went quite fast. I got a little reading done, and some napping. Then I had a 3-hour layover, so I got some walking in, then some lunch, and THEN I got my hot chocolate.

I’ve included a picture I took of myself in the mirror. I had gotten a backpack that has a side-reinforced compartment that fits my camera. I reasoned this would be great for hiking so I can carry the camera principally in the backpack rather than slung dangling from my shoulder–not the best idea for actual hiking. That worked great. What I didn’t discover until it came time to pack everything up, was that the sleeve area where I had planned to pack my laptop (just for travel) turned out to not be large enough. Ugh. This meant I’d have to carry my other backpack, too. (Normally I could zip it onto the big luggage and check it all, but I wasn’t about to do that with the computer inside!) So the picture shows the camera pack on my back and the computer, etc. backpack where I was carrying it on my chest. Kept me pretty balanced, but I’m sure looked a bit odd–and it was heavy!

The flight to Milan was 8 hours. I found my seat OK (aisle, yay!), and in talking to a seatmate, discovered (when I mentioned that I had retired from Lockheed last year) that there were 9 folks from Lockheed on the plane. They were headed to a conference about working with the Italians on the F-35 (they’re already building it in their own facility). Twist is that they had started out the day before, but 1 hour into the flight, the plane developed a problem and they had to turn around and come back to New York. The airline put them up for the night and got them seats on this flight, but they missed the first day of the conference. So I was sort of surrounded by Lockheed people.

Anyway, today’s flight went just fine. They fed us dinner, then turned out the lights (pretty much) so most people slept. I’m sure I did some–several cat naps, I think. Then a couple of hours before arrival, we were served a morning snack. That got us up and ready for the day. I do have to say I was pretty spoiled by my long-flight plane last year on Air New Zealand. Essentially a computer at every seat, all kinds of movies, power outlets, USB outlet, the works. On today’s plane, there was nothing special at all. Not even a power outlet. Well really…harumph!

We arrived in Milan at about 8 AM local time. I had directions from the hotel for how to get there, and that was an adventure. Truthfully, it sounded like it would be, so I was pretty prepared.

First task was to find the Milan Express train, located at the terminal. Saw and followed the signs, so cool. Got a ticket and went to where I was directed. You’ll see a picture of the station. Next task was to hope I got on the right train. I did, but I got on early, so it went to another stop at the airport when it was due for cleaning/servicing. We had an 8-minute or so wait there before heading back to the stop where I had gotten on and then into town. Truthfully, I was happy to be sitting down after the trip through the airport, so no worries. I got a seat right by the door which was nice since I had to wrestle all my luggage to rest!

Then it was a guessing game to be sure I got off at the right stop. I figured out how the stations were marked, and got off at Cardona. Then I had to go through a bank of turnstiles where you insert the ticket and it opens the gate. Next leg was on the subway, so I kind of wandered around until I saw that. This involved an elevator ride down one floor.

Then there was the adventure of getting a ticket. Nothing’s in English, so it was just a matter of keeping my eyes open and doing some guessing. My trips to Washington D.C. this year helped a lot, because it was a similar experience. Go to a ticket dispenser, select what you want, put in some money, and get the ticket. Trick was, since nothing was in English, to figure out what I wanted! I must have guessed right, because the ticket worked. And it’s apparently good for any ride for the day (1.5 Euros), so the same ticket worked when I had to change subway lines to get to my final station.

So, success! The big chore was wrestling my luggage around. The changing levels were all stairs, not escalators! If there were elevators, I didn’t see them. My luggage was heavy enough that I had to bump down a step at a time carefully, to be sure not to get pulled off balance. Then I had to do the same going up once I got to my stop. Whew! I really appreciated it when a man offered to carry my luggage down a flight, and then two guys offered to help me go up another, even if in their zeal to help, they actually pushed me off balance at first so I ended up sitting on one of the steps. It was all good!

The directions I had just said that the hotel was a 5-minute walk from the subway, but didn’t give any more details. The subway had two exits, too. I chose one and then just started walking at street level in the general direction where the map sort of showed the hotel. And I found it!

By this time it was 11 AM. Since check-in wasn’t until 2, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get into a room, but I figured it was worth checking and yay! Room available! I was able to get into my room and dump everything.

I find that when I pack for a trip like this, I rarely forget anything important, but it takes me some time to easily find where I’ve packed what. Packing cubes are a big help, but it still takes a while, so it was good to open up everything and get familiar with how I’d organized things!

I decided I’d read though the maps I’d picked up at the airport and review my options, get cleaned up and rested. Since it was still early, I decided to nap for an hour or so while the heat of the day passed (close to 90 here, but still cooler than at home in Texas!).

When I did head out, it was about 4 PM. There appear to be lots of apartments that have a lot of greenery on the high floors, so that’s cool. When I took the first picture, I thought it was an oddity, but then I saw others, too. Love it!

I walked a good ways to Castello Sforzesco (a nobleman’s castle), which looked like a good place to take pictures. Most of today was about getting re-acquainted with my camera and taking what I hope are interesting shots. I also took some selfies to prove I was there. 🙂 I should have brought a selfie-stick because my face is just too big in those pics, but what’re ya’ gonna’ do?

I have to explain one of the pictures–the one with the red sign. If you look closely, you’ll see what appear to be a bunch of spikes on the top. These spikes are everywhere! They’re to keep the birds from resting (and pooping) on the top of a bunch of structures. Mostly, you don’t see them, unless you’re looking closely, so they seem to be a good solution.

After wandering and shooting around the grounds a while, I headed through a very nice park (Parco Sempione), stopping at the beginning to pick up some post cards. That’s the souvenir stand in the picture. At the end of the park is a plaza with a monument. I think it’s Arco Della Pace. By the time I got there, some rain that had followed me from the direction of the castle finally broke and I ended up taking refuge under the monument, along with some other folks.

I was there about half an hour before daring to venture out into the sprinkles. I was more concerned about the camera getting wet than me, but it all worked out. I headed off in the general direction I thought was back toward the hotel, and made progress though the streets by following the street signs on the corners of the buildings. I did overshoot once, but made the correction and headed back.

When almost back to the hotel, I passed what looked like a nice restaurant off on a side street, so I stopped in for dinner. I’m not sure, but it looks like most all restaurants serve mostly just pizza. This place was pretty nice, but appeared to be again, all pizza. I got a good one–cheese, ham cubes, and a wheat crust. Only was able to eat half, but the atmosphere was nice, the people were nice, and once I left, it was a short walk back to the hotel.

Whew!

So I caught up on email and news (somewhat), then started this. It’s about 7:30 PM at home, which is 2:30 AM here. Time for me to upload and get to bed. Luckily I have all day here tomorrow so am not on a particular schedule. I’m going to head to the Duomo area tomorrow–not to go inside but to shoot pictures of the buildings. I’ve adjusted some of the camera settings (I think I chose a too-small jpg file for putting on the blog, so I bumped that up a notch). We’ll see how tomorrow’s pics come out. In any case, I have the raw files so I can process them in Lightroom and/or Photoshop once I get home.

Breakfast is included with the room price, so I should be well-fortified for tomorrow’s adventures. See you there!