Milano

My Euro Trip started in Turgi on Saturday morning… and it was raining and cold. Got a train to Zürich where it was also raining, and waited for my train to Milan. Once on the train things got better, and eventually we got away from the rain and up into the Alps. I was sitting next to a lady from Berlin and her daughter and they were pretty cool to talk to. The girl didn’t speak very good English, and I don’t speak very good German so we got to have some not very good conversations, but it was pretty fun.

I got to see the second Swiss person give the finger in my travels. This guy on the train didn’t have a ticket (I think that’s what was happening - they were arguing in Italian) so the ticket lady had this argument with him, which really escalated and I’m pretty sure she told him she had called the police to get him at the next station. Then at the next station they both got off and she gave him the finger and he walked away. I think it was the first sort of argument/fight I have seen in Switzerland, although we were basically in Italy.

Also crazy was the noticeable difference from the Swiss side of the border to the Italian side. Basically on the Swiss side there was small, quaint, neat houses and then 3 mins later as we crossed the border there was derelict rundown Italian buildings covered in graffiti that appeared to have been neglected for the last 10 years or so. It was just so striking how close the two towns were but how different they looked.

The same can’t be said for Milan. The train station in Milan was epic. It had massive ceilings with large stone columns, and was just generally an impressive building.

Outside the train station was a different matter, and stepping outside you could see that Milan was a modern city. It was basically like the city centre of Brisbane, lots of skyrises and nothing particularly cool to see. After spending what was probably a good hour or so finding a map, I worked out which way the Duomo was and headed towards it. It wasn’t that far to walk, but with luggage with me it was a very annoying walk. I hadn’t done any research on Milan so didn’t really know what I was looking for, but walked into the “Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II” which had a massive glass dome roof. Then out into the plaza which had the craziest looking church, the Duomo di Milano. Again, having luggage ruined the experience because I wasn’t allowed inside the church with it. But it was still cool to see from the outside. Then I went for a further walk and found the “Castello Sforzesco” which was pretty cool, but again it was hard to explore and look around too much with a suitcase with me.

At this stage it looked like it was going to rain and would get dark soon, so I started heading back to the train station. At one point a police chase went past, maybe they were chasing the mafia… there was about 4 or 5 cop cars with sirens blaring. It started raining basically as I got there at about 6.30pm, and then later on started pouring. It then got really cold once it got dark and I had to put on my new ski jacket that I bought, but even then it was still freezing. So then I had to wait in the cold train station for 6 hours or so for my train to Rome and the train station seemed a lot less awesome then when I first got there.

One interesting thing happened at about 10. I’m not sure what exactly was going on, but I walked past this homeless guy on the ground that was going crazy on an umbrella, bending all the metal rods and snapping them. Everybody nearby then grabbed there umbrellas and left. So I’m not sure if it was his or someone else’s. Was bizarre to watch, but I then left as well because this guy was clearly one angry homeless dude.

Once the train finally boarded, I was pretty impressed that we actually got a sort of bed. The seat rests had been folded back and a sheet put down so the 3 seats became a bed, and another bed was folded down up top. Then some creepy looking Mexican guy came in and I was reminded of the scene on the train in the movie Euro Trip and got a little concerned. But then I think he either was in the wrong compartment or didn’t have a ticket because when the ticket inspector came around he left (they were talking in Spanish or Italian so I didn’t know what exactly was going on). Then a young Swiss/Italian guy came in who was pretty cool and I had a chat to him. The actual trip itself was okay, not amazing because it’s hard to sleep on a train when it bumps around and makes so much noise, but was certainly a good way to travel that saves on accommodation and time.

I then basically slept until I got to Rome……..