Milan

On Wednesday morning, we grabbed a final coffee (espresso for Kristy, Macchiato for me) from Burgus – our favourite coffee shop in Vernazza – before heading to the train station.

It was a fairly uneventful trip back to Milan – essentially just three hours in a packed train. The girl sitting next to me spent a good part of two hours preening herself, including hair removal, nail filing, and other acts which I’m doing my best to forget. Gross.

We checked our luggage at the train station then negotiated a subway into the city. Upon emerging, we were very impressed by the grand church-like building in front of us, but we were very under-impressed by the rain, which was still coming down!

We didn’t have much time to spare, so we took a quick wander around the streets in search of food (which was harder than I had thought, though we found loads of coffee bars!). We ended up in a restaurant that looked quite fancy, and judging by their prices and their clientele, they catered mainly to hungry, desperate tourists. So I guess you could say – we were in the right place!

Somehow I completely messed up with times, and after a fairly panicked subway ride back to the train station, we were almost running to catch the bus back to the airport. With only 25 minutes until check-in closed, I almost had a hearty when I saw a road sign advertising that we still had 45km to go! But it all turned out ok; the decimal point had simply faded a bit, and it was actually only 4.5 kilometers left. Phew!

I don’t think our two hour jaunt in and out of the city counts as a “visit” to Milan, but it was still nice to do something a little different at the end of our trip. Also, we’ve heard it from many reliable sources that Milan is city that can easily be skipped – so perhaps two hours is enough, after all!

Photos from Cinque Terre, Pisa, and Milan now online for your viewing pleasure!