It was a bit if a test this morning trying to fit us, Alastair, 3 large bags and countless small bags and food cartons into the Peugeot. We did manage it, but the rear seat passenger is a bit squashed in. How we will get our guff back down to a single big bag when we leave Germany without the car is anyone’s guess!
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| Vittorio Emmanuele II Galleria |
We yet again had rain this morning. We have not had the good weather of previous trips. In 1982 we had a heat wave and it was over 30 degrees each day, even in the heights of Switzerland. In 2009 I think we had a couple of days’ rain in 3 months. However this trip we have had at least a shower pretty much every day since we arrived in Lucca, and it has been quite muggy at times. But the weather for the previous 2 months was pretty great.
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| Triennale Design Museum |
K here. It is now Mon 20th and we have been flat out during the last 5 days, now wracking our brains to try and fill in the blanks for this blog. Switzerland was an absolute blast. However, back to Lucca. Set off by 9.30am and took the toll road straight through to Milan. We had previously decided we didn’t have the time to fluff around and needed to make quick progress northwards. Our original itinerary actually had us travelling northeast to the foothills of the Alps north of Venice in search of more info for the book. However, we think we now have enough info about Italian immigrants and I only had one confirmed village that I knew immigrants came from.
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| Milan's Duomo |
Arrived in Milan by 1pm and 24€ the poorer for tolls. Our first target was Milan’s Triennale Design Museum. Alastair and John were both very keen to see this. Found a park immediately outside and had a quick picnic lunch on the grass nearby, then in to have a good look around. Unfortunately it turned out to be very disappointing. There was a good exhibition of chair designs, and the other odd bit of furniture, but that was it. One good things was that you could sit in the chairs. Felt pretty robbed of our entrance fee and disappointed that Milan didn’t have something more extensive to offer. Struck out on foot for the Piazza del Duomo, which was pretty close by. This, by contrast, was stunning. The cathedral, other buildings around the square, buzz of activity and huge scale was great. By now it had come out very hot so we endeavoured to eat gelatos before they melted all over us. I would have loved to have looked around some of the many fashion shops but we exited Milan only 2½ hrs after arriving. Now we just wanted to head as far north as we could towards Switzerland. We were all very keen to see it.
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| High lake levels in Como |
We got as far as Como, close to the Swiss border, and found a reasonable room for 3 in an albergo on the outskirts. After lugging up gear up 3 flights of stairs we were off again in search of a meal. We wandered around the waterfront of Lake Como, which was just lovely. The lake level was pretty high, in fact lapping over the footpath in places. We opted for a drink at an aperitif at a bar first. I had a disgusting red Campari, Alastair an orange prosecco-based drink, as we had seen Italians drinking these every evening and felt we need to know what they were like. Now we know. Dinner was a pizza nearby. The prices were pretty high all round. Back to a good night’s sleep – at least there were no comments about any snoring from any quarters of the room so we must have all slept well!
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| Como's churchtower |
