Monday 10th September: Weather 20°C up to 30°C: sunny all day, hot and humid
Milan: 10k: 8.16am Train Pont Saint Martin to Milan arriving 10.46am: Walk around Milan
Accommodation: Seveso Apartments, 18 Via Seveso, Milan
Gotta try a gelati
A day in Milan. We’re awake early and leave Casa Antica in the cool hazy morning to catch the 8.16am train to Milano Centrale. There’s a change of trains at Ivrea and Chivasso and we arrive in Milan at 10.46am and find a spot in the park over the road from the station to make a cup of tea and have breakfast we have brought with us from Conads supermarket the night before.
We plan to leave our bags at Seveso Apartments but when we get there at midday, the room is ready. It’s very clean and is one of I think four rented rooms in a converted apartment Number 12, run by a Chinese girl. It’s a modern spacious room with a separate ensuite and a fridge where we park our butter beans and beetroot for tonights dinner - also from Conads.
Yum yum
Vittorio Emanuele 11 Galleria
The magnificent Duomo
Model in front of Duomo
Milan Decathlon Primus gas cans
Resting in Decathlon
Lunch at the Castle
Flowers in the English Garden
A quick reorganise before loading my back pack with our jetboil, tea coffee etc and heading off to the centre of town and the Duomo about 3k away. It’s warm and humid and getting hotter. Time for our first gelato in Italy this trip. Then through the huge Vittorio Emanuele 11 Gallery with the up market designer stores- Prada, Georgio Armani, Versace etc - no shoppers, just tourists with cameras.
Through the arch and out onto the plaza to see the magnificent Duomo where there’s a model strutting her stuff for a photographer. There’s a Decathlon store about 800 metres further on and we spend an hour wandering around checking out the latest in hiking equipment and see that yes they do have 230g Primus gas cans. We’ll remember that for our next trip.
It’s 3pm when we wander over to the castle grounds to have a cup of tea and a biscuit before walking back to our room via a kitchen store to buy Vittorinox knives, which they don’t have, but they do have identical knives made in Italy. They’ll do. A quick stop to pick up some bread, potato chips, cold meat and a few beers for dinner and yoghurt for breakfast.
Back at our room for a cold beer and chips before a salad and mayonaise for dinner. Repacking takes a while then another Doc Martin before bed at 10pm. Our room is just perfect - I’d give it 10 out of 10 on bookingg.com - EXCEPT for the Chinese laundry above our room with a heavy duty washing machine coming on for an hour intermittently throughout the night.
We’ll be off in the morning aiming for the 10.40am Etihad from Milan to Abu Dhabi and teh connecting flight to either Sydney or Brisbane.