Fashion capital of the world

Hotel hassles

We drove from Stresa to Milan today, a journey of about 90 mins via the highway and then through the streets of the city.  We had a little shock with the tolls on the highway en route.  The first one was paid on credit card just fine at the exit based on distance travelled, after having picked up a ticket on the entry.  But the second one was confusing as we had to pay without having collected an entry ticket.  As it turned out, the second was just a flat entry fee into greater Milan.

We found our hotel, the Tulip Inn Delle Nazione but struck a problem checking in.  The hotel said we had booked for a single occupancy.  And there were two of us.  We entered into an unfruitful negotiation with them but they wouldn’t budge.  We had no choice but to pay a surcharge for the second person as if we didn’t take the room, there would be a cancellation charge.

It turned out that there were various rates that were about the same and our travel agent had picked the one that was single occupancy rather than double (possibly with more favourable T&Cs to make up for it).  We don’t get many things going wrong in our travels so we found it quite upsetting.

We hopped back into the rental car to return it.  We attempted to fill up at an Esso station but they didn’t take overseas credit cards.  We had to fill up slowly in increments of EUR20, EUR5 and a further and final EUR5 which was only partly required.  It’s not the first time the most simple and basic tasks in Italy becomes stressful but fortunately this time we weren’t pressed for time.

With that out of the way, we checked out the railway station to look for the bus that would take us to Linate airport tomorrow.

Sightseeing in Milan

For some sightseeing, we took the metro to the Museum of Technology.  It was an amazing building with huge sailing ships, trains and planes inside.  The car section was less impressive though.

We walked towards the Duomo, Milan’s Cathedral, stopping for a snack-lunch at McDonald’s since we hadn’t had a proper lunch.  Even though Milan is regarded as the fashion capital of the world, the graffiti-scrawled buildings in the city centre didn’t sit well with my expectations.  And there were many people with very mismatched attires and accessories too.  I’m no fashion expert but a mismatch between one’s belt and shoes kinda stand out.

However, Piazza del Duomo was full of lovely cafes and the nearby Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II mall was stunning.

We made it to the cathedral and explored the interior before heading up to the roof.  The roof was made of solid marble slabs.  Wow!  It gave us a view of the surrounding area and the city further afield.  But I appreciated the view of the cathedral’s exterior detail from here, with the flying buttresses, statues and ornate ornaments.

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We walked back through Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the main shopping streets.  It was all very nice but high-fashion items don’t fit into my lifestyle.  The route took us through Giardini Pubblici Indro Montanelli, a nice public garden with some notable buildings.

For dinner, we wanted to go the 888 Chinese Restaurant.  But we found out that they didn’t open till 1900.   We returned to the hotel to watch the Montreal Grand Prix before having dinner of chilli prawns, and chicken with mushrooms and bamboo shoots.

Kim wanted to catch the end of the Grand Prix so we returned to the hotel for that before having dessert at McDonald’s. We tried the strawberry and custard pie, accompanied by a snowfreeze.  This outlet must be one in an upmarket area as they charged EUR0.80 for the snowfeeze rather than the EUR0.50 elsewhere.