Arriving and driving in Milan

Routine, long flight from SFO.  Although better than most.  SFO to JFK, 5 hours, then JFK to Milan 8 hours.  We left San Francisco at 7am on Sunday and arrived in Milan at 8am on Monday.  Ready to start our adventure.

First, rent a car for the day.  Initially we were going to do some skiing in the Dolomites.  Then we decided, before we left, to just drive up to the mountains.  Then, once we got here, we discovered that to drive to the Dolomites from Milan is a day long proposition with no guarantee that we would see any of the scenery.  Indeed, in Milan it is rainy, a bit snowy and very foggy and cloudy.  Not a good day for sightseeing.  We decided to drive around Lake Como, closer to Milan and made famous, or infamous by George Clooney and his parties at his vaca house.

First, driving in Italy’s cities.  One word, big mistake. (two words). I am struggling trying to drive at 110-120 kph (70-75mph), while everyone else is blasting past me like I am in reverse.  And if, shudder the thought, I get in the left lane to pass a truck that is only going 100kph, I have an Italian in his Audi or BMW on my bumper honking, blinking his lights and throwing up his hands in frustration.  As I merge again to the right he is 20 feet past me before I am fully in the right lane. Add to that the rain, and in the smaller towns around Lake Como, there seemed to be several hundred of those, the roads are very curvy, very narrow, not two lane like the Autobahn, but that didn’t slow anybody down but me! I pulled over numerous times to let everyone else pass.  We kept the car for the day and returned it in the afternoon.  I was exhausted.  I can’t imagine what it is like in the summer with 10X the people that are here now.  Wait…..take a taxi.

Another interesting thing was our drive back from Lake Como.  We started on the west side went north, then came down south on the eastern side.  Only problem, no view.  It wasn’t obstructed by trees or buildings, most of the road was buried!  Tunnel after tunnel.  Miles long, curving, I have never seen anything like that either.  It seems they just started tunneling on one end and didn’t stop till they came out the other end.

Finally, we took the train from the airport to the main terminal, walked 40 minutes to the hotel, (I read the map thinking it would be 10), and settled in with a long shower and dinner.  The nice owner-lady of Gala Hotel recommended a small place down the street, pizza and raviolis –Italian Style—excellent.  Then, 10 hours of catch up sleep.