Meina - Lake Maggiore - Milan

The drive from Lucca to Meina, on the shore of Lake Maggiore was, in Neil’s words, the hardest he has done on tour. Mainly because the first 200km was mostly in tunnels and over viaducts with 2-3 lanes of traffic.
We had a further stressful event when I had a call from Golden View Care, when we had stopped at a service area for a break. We were told that Mum was in liver failure and was critical. As you can imagine this was very upsetting but after we rang our family they certainly rallied around and we got regular reports of how she was and had a video call with her. The antibiotics and drip with fluids had perked her up and she was talking to us. So, a bit of relief but we will be very pleased to be home in 6 days so we can be with her in person.

We are definitely in wind down mode, we didn’t feel like driving again today so went for walk in Meina. They didn’t have a lakefront walk as it is all private land (selfish) so we settled for a coffee in a lovely area beside the lake. I did some planning for the trip home and we just vegged on the couch for the afternoon. We have a gorgeous stream running down below our apartment so we sat out on the deck and had coffee. There are big trees and a bush area beside the stream, it was notable that there were no birds! Lots of butterflies and bees but no birds. Finally their version of a magpie came and sat on a branch, but I found it surreal. Can’t wait to get home to see the wax eyes eating my crab apples in the garden. Will need to put a sugar feeder out for the Tuis. They might have already moved on since it is Spring.

The thunderstorms overnight were impressive, thunder rumbled for a few hours and our stream beside the apartment block had risen quite a lot this morning. The rain had gone off by the time we took our luggage to the car, half an hour later we were dropping the car off at Milan Malpensa. 3,200km in Italy and we returned the car in perfect condition, well done Bully on excellent driving, sometimes (often) under trying conditions. Caught a taxi into Milan, 45 mins and 114 Euro later 😬 we were at our apartment for the next two nights. Not going to lie we are tired.
NEIL here I have a very modest navigator, Trish done a brilliant job and had to as DOLLY (Google Maps) had many coffee breaks just when she was needed most. Many times my polite navigator said where the F——- has DOLLY gone grabbed the second phone and by time I had done 3 circuit’s of the roundabout had it sorted. We made a great team and I have decided to bring her home with me.

11 September - I bought tickets online to visit the Duomo in Milan and walk to the terraces on the rooftop. Our accommodation is close to the centre of Milan so we walked the 1.2km there and back. It is a magnificent building. It was spoilt a little by scaffolding on the outside and inside of the building but we enjoyed the experience. There were many designer shops in this area of Milan which I only admired from the outside.

Mum has improved so that has eased our minds for the trip home. Had to do some final washing to get me home, hope the neighbours don’t mind 😆 (See photo)Read more