Milano – My first time here, and navigating in a language I don’t know, without my partner in crime. It wasn’t EASIER with the Basha, but we could take turns with the chaos “adventures”.
The flights were easy, once I got to Malpensa things turned challenging.
The nice lady from our hotel gave me directions from the airport. I had no idea it would take me 2hours to make the trek!
At the airport the challenge was to (1) find where the trains go from, (2) figure out how to get a ticket without TOTALLY pissing off the locals who just want you to get out of their way. (Sounds like New York – no one is mean, just frustrated at the idiot tourons). It wasn’t expensive, $15USD/$285Mx, but the stress of figuring out a ticket machine in Italian wirh a line of people trying not to miss the train was INTENSE.
Airport express train to Centrale station – about 40min. I had no clue that there are three airports, and we did NOT fly into the central one. Malpensa is significantly northwest of the city.
The ride was easy, except that few of the stations had markings, and there is no map or announcement to tell you where you are. *KUDOS to my Papá who introduced me to the CityMapper app!!** Saved my sanity, and my bacon, although it EATS data because it runs in real time.
At Centrale, which is an old fashioned, beautiful train station, I switched to the Metro.
The metro card machine – the ones selling new cards, not to refill – weren’t working. It took me half an hour to realize that you can “tap and go” like in NYC if you have a bank card. I blame the lack of sleep. 🥱
Last challenge, find the hotel and get my keys from the barman. The desk closes at 6:30ish, but the bar is open from 9am to midnight! Yay!!
The bar was packed, the farm-to-table restaurant was PACKED, but I got my keys and dropped my stuff. After the (two) day(s) I’ve had travelling, I treated myself to a LOVELY rosato d’Abruzzo, for $7USD/€6! This might be an amazing trip!! But I am going to be exhausted most of the time. 😅