Satellite
Show on map
  • Day 202

    Day 203: Milan

    September 5, 2017 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Time to leave Como and get started on the rest of Italy! Packed up everything and headed downstairs around 9:45, aiming to get the car back before 10:30am and then on a train to Milan around 11am. Loaded up the car and drove down the narrow twisty road to the main street, came face-to-face with a car driving up the road. Reversed backwards to give them some space, and CRUNCH.

    Shit. I'd reversed directly into a small pole blocking someone's driveway. I'd given it a good whack too - no chance the rental company wouldn't notice. In my defence, the pole was below the level of my rear view mirror, inside the view of my wing mirror, and I couldn't see it on the rear camera because the grey pole was basically the same colour as the grey tarmac. No reflectors or paint either. As I drove away I double-checked, and yes, it's visible, but easy to miss.

    Back at the rental office the guy obviously noticed straight away, and we filled in an incident report together. He was pretty understanding, and had apparently crashed one of the rental cars shuffling it around the parking lot a couple of weeks ago, which he had to pay for. The mechanic would come and look at it later (thankfully we didn't need to wait), but the cost to us would be up to the excess value of 1200 euros (it later came in around 700 euros). Ouch, but at least we can claim it back on travel insurance. First time in 21 years of driving that I've crashed a car!

    Anyway. Onwards to Milan, where the train turned up around 11:20 and off we went. There's two main stations in Milan, and we'd booked an Airbnb near one of them - unfortunately our train arrived at the other! So we got a clunky old tram a kilometre or so across town to the other station, before wandering over to our apartment.

    By now it was around 1pm, so we dropped our stuff in the apartment (it's just a single room in a three-bedroom apartment) and headed into the city via the metro. First stop was the enormous cathedral, Il Duomo, one of the largest Catholic churches in the world. Shandos had made the mistake of wearing shorts, so she wouldn't be allowed inside, and in any case we had Schnitzel who definitely wouldn't be allowed in either. So we grabbed a quick delicious lunch of paninis, and decided that I'd go in on my own. In the end the ticket was only 3 euros so I was quite happy.

    Beautiful interior, surprisingly bright and with a better floor:pillar ratio than other large cathedrals I've been in (Westminster and Seville cathedral stand out as being more pillars than floor space). A few different things to check out inside like sculpture, stained glass and so on, so I did a lap and then emerged back out into the blindingly bright and hot piazza.

    Met up with Shandos again as we walked back through Galeria Vittorio Emmanuele II, a ritzy shopping arcade adjacent to the cathedral. Also wandered around a few other little hidden squares nearby, and the surprisingly unimpressive opera house. Vienna it ain't.

    Stopped for a drink in a cafe and chilled out for a while, but decided we'd head home as it was pushing 4pm and still very hot - we were both still a little traumatised as well by the long day I think. So back home where we relaxed, worked a little, then headed out later for dinner at the pizza restaurant downstairs - very tasty. Back behind the wheel tomorrow as we start our journey across northern Italy!
    Read more