Friday was our last day in Luneau and Nick spent most of the
day helping Iain with the roof. He also
had to shovel and roll the patio (using a sort of steamroller, except it was not
powered by steam).
I helped with cleaning, cooking etc and we had a feast of
pates, cheeses, salad, bread etc for dinner.
We were really lucky to see an amazing sunset that evening and after we’d
enjoyed that we got a reasonably early night as we needed to be up at really
early the next morning.
Up at 4.30am and the mission of a journey to Milan
begins. Iain gave us a lift to Paray le
Monial station so we could catch the train to Lyon. Had a bit of a panic when we realised there
was no machine to collect our pre-paid tickets from and no staff to assist
us. We got on the train and Nick
explained the situation to the conductor and all was well. The train to Lyon took 2 hours and went very
quick for me as I was asleep all the way.
The next leg of the journey was Lyon to Geneva, and once at Lyon we
managed to collect our tickets from the machine. Off we went to Geneva – another 2 hour
journey, and again I slept all the way!
We arrived at Geneva at 10.30am and went straight to the ticket
office. (The plan had been to buy the
Geneva to Milan tickets at the station, as for some stupid reason it wouldn’t
let us buy them online.) However what should have been £35 online turned out to
be £135 from the ticket office so we told the woman no. We went to Starbucks to mull things over and
Nick decided that we should just get on the train without a ticket and blag the
conductor with the classic tale, “We bought our tickets online but the machine at
the station wouldn’t print them….we are just stupid English people….surely we
don’t need to buy another ticket??” I
was dubious to say the least but as Nick was in charge of the purse strings I
had no choice but to go along with his plan.
On the train, the plan was put into action and as expected the conductor
stopped short of saying, “I couldn’t give a s**t, buy another ticket” but not
by much.
So we paid the lying Swiss (Nicks comment) their full price
ticket and the journey continued. A
couple of hours in we had to get off the train and onto a bus as there was a
problem with the track. After half hour
we were back on a train – an old fashioned style train with individual cabins
for 6 people. We were sat in one with
three women, a Chinese girl who didn’t say a word, your stereotypical old
Italian woman, and a crazy French woman who tried to stare us out all the way.
Finally we arrived in Milan at 18.05 and took the Metro to
Duomo, then a tram to Via Lorrenteggio, the road the hotel was on. Unfortunately we got off far too early (as
this road was possibly the longest in the world) and had to walk the last mile.
To cap off the 15.5 hour journey, while on the walk to the hotel, the handle of
the suitcase broke. This meant that Nick
had to carry it instead of me wheeling it along. At 8.00 we arrived at the hotel, and no your
eyes are not deceiving you, our room really did have 2 double beds!
We went down to the bar for a beer and some dinner. Nick ordered a pizza and me trying to be
healthy after all the bread, cheese, pate etc of the last week, ordered a
Chicken Ceasar Salad. The waitress came
back from the kitchen and informed me that there was no chicken left and that
instead I could have pork. I thought “Pork
Caesar Salad?” but went with it anyway.
Our food arrived and Nick’s pizza was delicious. The same could not be said for my salad which
was not remotely Caesar given the fact that there was no dressing in sight, and
it actually just consisted of leaves, carrots and extremely greasy fried pork.
A disappointing end to a tiring day.
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