Milano: the final day

As opposed to all the other days of this holiday, I woke early on Tuesday morning. We had done most of the packing the day before, but there were always more things to pack.

After a final filling breakfast, we took our taxi driver's advice and went to the Duomo looking for the ODStore; if one stands with one's back to the Duomo, then this shop is at the top left hand corner of the piazza. Leaving the Duomo station at the Via Torino exit will bring one to the shop. This is a shop filled to the brim with many kinds of chocolate and biscuits, although I wasn't overly impressed with it. Prices are somewhat variable: I bought in Carrefour several bars of Nero Limone chocolate at about 1.30€, whereas ODStore was selling them for about 3.50€. I saw the same bars in the duty free shops of Malpensa airport for 5€ each, so it's just as well that I stocked up in Carrefour. Opposite the ODStore is a toy shop where my wife bought a variety of toys for our grandchildren. The prices varied from seemingly cheap to reasonable to expensive (anything with a logo). I was more worried about how we would fit all these purchases into our suitcase than about the cost.

There was a light rain falling that made walking about the area inappropriate (I had left my umbrella back at the hotel). Looking down a side street, we saw a good cafe - the Princi bakery. It was a bit confusing at first to know in which queue to stand; I was told (in Italian) that I was standing in the wrong place and that the queue for paying was to the left. We had a delectable large slice of lemon meringue pie along with the traditional tea with milk.

Then it was back to the hotel. We still had several hours to fill before the taxi driver would pick us up. The previous evening next to the metro stop before ours I had seen a shop that purported to sell THE chocolate that I truly love (Baretti e Milano), so I took the opportunity to fill the dead time to walk to this shop. To my surprise, the metro stop was much closer than I had imagined (not much further from the hotel than the stop that we used) but I couldn't find that shop. Shame.

While waiting for the taxi, our travel agent sent us a message saying that the flight had been delayed by an hour, leaving at 23:55. There wasn't much that we could do, so after the driver picked us up and deposited us at Malpensa, we had to wait for more than two hours before we could even check in, due to security reasons. Then we had more time to sit around and do nothing, especially as the airplane hadn't even arrived by 23:55. Boarding was accomplished at about 00:30 Wednesday morning; we landed in Israel some time after 5 am and arrived home at 07:30. I showered and went to bed for a few hours sleep, although that's not enough.

My phone had run out of electricity some time yesterday (Tuesday) so the first thing that I did after arriving was to charge it. By the time I woke up, it had reached 100% which is good; I think that the phone was wasting battery power by looking for networks or something similar. Now the battery is at 94% capacity.

The clip on the top of my mp3 player had broken at some stage. Whilst this of course does not affect the ability to play music, it's mildly annoying and I'll have to order a new one (if it's still being made). When I got home, I discovered that my XP computer would not boot. I knew that it was offline as there was a power cut on the kibbutz a few days ago, but there seems to be something wrong with the hard disk. I've disconnected the computer from everything and will open it up some time, primarily in order to clean out all the dust and dog hair that has accumulated inside. If it won't work after that then it's to the repairman. Thus three electrical devices have either ceased working or need repairing.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
72	08/05/2007	(Welcome to the) Hotel California	Van der Graaf Generator, Randy Newman, Jackson Browne, CSN, Barney Hoskyns
130	08/05/2008	Amsterdam diary	Programming, Holiday, Amsterdam
357	08/05/2011	More facts your mother never told you about Word automation	Programming, Office automation
581	08/05/2013	Analysing my sleep	CPAP, Gadgets
704	08/05/2014	Doctoring, researching, sampling	DBA, Kindle
1500	08/05/2022	1500 blogs	Meta-blogging

Milano: piove

A few weeks ago, I watched a slow Italian video about the rain. I didn't expect that I would be needing the vocabulary from that video, but the events of the past few days - and today - proved me wrong. I didn't realise that it was raining (a polite rain) outside until I was in the hotel's breakfast room that is on the top floor of the hotel and has a panoramic view of the not particularly salubrious neighbourhood. I saw people below walking around with umbrellas. Fortunately I have kept my umbrella from Menaggio.

We didn't have plans for this morning save visiting a laundromat and doing some groceries shopping. The laundromat turned out to be a professional laundry and ironing service that would have cost us an arm and a leg; they also don't wash underwear. It's just as well that we don't really need the service; it was simply to help pack the clothes in the suitcase. Grocery shopping in Carrefour was a warm haven from the slightly cold rain outside. They have a small selection of books for sale, so I checked the Gs and found a few copies of 'La Via del Male', aka 'Career of evil', the third Cormoran Strike novel. I didn't bother buying a copy.

By lunchtime the rain ceased, so in late afternoon we took the metro to the I Navigli district. Bars and restaurants line both banks of the main canal, but to be honest, these are tourist traps. I ate my first (and probably only) ice cream of this visit at the only gelatteria that I saw. Unfortunately the ice cream left me feeling slightly queasy and nauseous, so I didn't bother eating dinner.

Breakfasts in this hotel are very filling; I probably eat enough in the morning to last me for the rest of the day. All the walking is adding to my basal metabolic rate so I would not be surprised if I have lost weight on this trip. On the other hand, I am not eating enough roughage. Saturday: 14,690 steps and 629 calories; Sunday: 18,732 steps and 839 calories; today 'only' 11,754 steps and 499 calories.

When we had taken our fill of the canal area, we walked back to the Porta Geneva metro station, only to find that the entrance from which we had previously exited was barred. I looked for the main entrance and eventually found it; as we were descending, someone stopped my wife and told her not to bother going down into the station as THE METRO IS ON STRIKE! OMG! How do we get back to the hotel? Fortunately a few taxis pulled up, so we were able to get a ride with one of them. We talked to the driver who told us that the strike is only for today; he suggested a few activities for tomorrow. 

After the problems that we encountered in getting from Malpensa to Milano, and from the train station to the hotel, we decided to take a taxi directly from the hotel to the airport and damn the cost. Via the internet this would have cost at least 95€ ; we closed a deal with this taxi driver for 110€ . Better safe than sorry. Our flight doesn't leave until 10 pm tomorrow, so we don't have to be there before 7 pm. This gives us a whole day to fill.

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This day in history (again):

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
247	06/05/2010	White coat syndrome	Business novel
478	06/05/2012	ERP beats Excel at CRM	ERP, Excel
1027	06/05/2017	Televison detectives	TV series, DCI Banks
1755	06/05/2024	First lie wins	Literature

Milano: another mixed day

First of all, something left over from yesterday. I didn't see any at the Duomo, but the area around the castle was full of scam artists. The two usual scams - the threads and the roses - were in evidence, although I didn't see any takers. There was also a photographer who wanted to take people's photographs; at least he didn't take the pictures first then demand money for them.

The plan for today was to travel to Como that hopefully would be better than Bellagio. We got to the central train station without problem, but after I found the correct queue to buy tickets and then got to the front, I was told that there was a strike in Como. What does this mean, I asked? Well, you might be able to get there but you might not be able to get back. I decided to pass on the opportunity. I then went to find my wife who I had parked in a certain place within the station - but the station is huge and it took me about twenty minutes to find her. We then did a little shopping in the bottom floor of the station.

I looked at my map to see whether there was any information about shopping; no, but I did see that there was a tourist information centre outside the station. So we went outside, into the strong sunlight, where I found the centre and was pointed to a long boulevard. We started walking down this boulevard, looking for somewhere to eat as well as somewhere to shop. The road seemed somewhat familiar which is when I realised that we had travelled down it on the bus ride from the Duomo. We arrived at the Republica station and I suggested that we go 'home', have lunch, rest, do some research about shopping then set out again.

This is what we did. My research led us to the Tre Torri (three towers) shopping centre. Although this isn't too far away from where we are, getting there was problematic as we had to take one train three stops (from Gambara to Pagano), change platforms to go backwards (the red line splits at Pagano; we were on one side and we needed the other side) to Lotto and then change to the purple line for two stops to Tre Torri. Getting to the shopping centre was one problem; finding the children's clothes shop Jacadi was another problem. Eventually I did find it so my wife spent some time (and money) there buying something for our youngest grand-daughter.

After she finished, we had what might be termed an interesting meal of chicken teriyaki with broccoli, tomatoes and whole grain rice. I didn't touch the tomatoes and found the rice not particularly tasty. After we finished eating, it was back down the metro and three trains in order to get home. There must have been a football match on at San Siro stadium, as there were plenty of football fans at the Lotto station where we changed trains. Maybe they were going to San Siro as Tre Torri is two stops before Lotto which is three stops before San Siro. Whatever.

Today I walked in excess of 18,000 steps. I don't have the kilometrage yet, but yesterday I walked 14,690 steps or 11.64 km, so today must be around 14.8 km! My back hurts. [15.10 km]

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
129	05/05/2008	Whoever would have believed it?	Maccabi Tel Aviv
172	05/05/2009	Heron	Heron
580	05/05/2013	One gets what one pays for	Headphones, Gadgets

Milano - a mixed day

Today started in a very leisurely manner after the exertions of yesterday, and we didn't leave the hotel until 10 am. The first goal was to walk to Gambara metro station - accomplished with no problems. Buying metro tickets was slightly problematic at first (I chose a machine that didn't work), but was easy to learn once someone showed me what to do. The next goal was to travel to the Duomo - easy because this is eight stops away from Gambara with no changes.

Once at the Duomo we looked around and took pictures, just like everyone else. At the top of the large piazza in front of the Duomo are situated the hop-on/hop-off buses. A 24 hour ticket cost 25€, not 22€ as advertised (probably an old price); I would be pushed to say that we got our money's worth. The first bus ride that we took was the Red line; we didn't see anything interesting on this ride except for the Milano Centrale train station that is an extremely imposing building. There was a cold wind blowing that didn't help our general disappointment.

After we returned to the Duomo piazza, we walked to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, chic shopping arcade. This too was a disappointment, apart from the mosaics on the floor. The pictures of the arcade and the Duomo must have been taken at night, because not a soul can be seen in them. In real life, they are teeming with people, especially the arcade. At the far side of the arcade is a garden area with an interesting statue of Leonardo (presumably da Vinci). This was more interesting than the previous three activities.

Once we had finished there, I suggested that we walk back to the bus stop at the Duomo so that we could try another line. First we had to stop at a restaurant where we had a reasonable lunch, once again spaghetti al pomodoro. The price rises each time we have this.

Back at the bus stop, a D line bus was waiting. Once underway, its route was slightly more interesting until we came to the Castello stop; I saw far away some form of castle and suggested that we get off the bus to explore - after all, this is the point of the hop-on/hop-off experience.

A good call! It turned out that this castle was the Castello Sforzesco although at first we weren't aware of all its offerings. The first thing that we saw were the water spouts in the front of the castle. Once past this, we saw that the castle had a wide courtyard - the atmosphere reminded me of the grounds around the leaning tower of Pisa. We continued to walk further into the castle grounds and found another courtyard that led to another courtyard then out of the castle.

Behind the castle is Parco Sempione which itself seems to be made up of several parts with a small lake in the middle. I continued walking to the end (or possibly the beginning) of the park in order to take pictures of the gate and the sculpture above it. I measured the distance from where I was (not even at the end of the park) back to the castle - just under a kilometre.

After thoroughly enjoying the castle and its environs, we decided not to continue our bus journey as there was a metro stop by the castle entrance and this stop was on the same line as both the Duomo and our local metro stop. So we returned to our starting point and I brought us home to the hotel. Afterwards I went out in a different direction to the Carrefour market in order to buy food - much cheaper than eating in restaurants all the time.

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This day in history:

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838	04/05/2015	Losing the grouping	ERP, Excel
1026	04/05/2017	Priority tip: default parameter values	Priority tips
1498	04/05/2022	Carole Bayer Sager autobiography	Carole Bayer Sager, Song writing, Non-fiction books