Milan + Travel Day

Yeah I'm really running out of titles so from now on they're going to be really just descriptors... I don't know how creatives do it...

After Venice we decided to spend an actual day in Lake Guarda where we were staying and huffed it around the lake trying to find a beach. We found a nice private beach for a staggering 8 euro per person + 3 euro for a beach bed. Yeah no. So the lady pointed us in the direction of a free optional nude beach where it was "a long beach so you didn't have to be near the naked people." Well she forgot to mention you still had to walk along the curvy main road, scale down essentially a cliff, and walk PAST all the nude people. Needless to say we sent a scout who couldn't stomach it and we decided to just pay the 11 euros to save our souls and our retinas. On our return the ticket girl took pity on us though and we only had to pay 8 euro per person and we got the beds for free. It was a chill night and we cooked at home as we were going to Milan in the morning.

The private beach in Lake Garda from above

Milan was a fun day. We stayed in an ungodly purple hotel which some how had a 4 star rating. It was nice no kidding but I have no clue what it did to earn its 4 star rating. It was a quick and easy train ride into Milan city so we spent the day there, saw a park, saw the Duomo, and had dinner for 7 euros for a drink and an all you can eat buffet. The food was decent for the price and afterwards we drank wine by the waterfront and just had a good time.

I'm really glad that I got to spend the last week with my friends. It was so easy to fall back into line with them and it almost seemed like the last 5 months hadn't even happened.

After they left I spent a few hours at our hotel in the lobby before departing for the train that would take me to my bus which would take me to the Amalfi Coast. This is the part where I learned a few lessons...

So my bus left Terminal 1 of the Malpensa airport at 5:45 pm. It is a Flixbus so they are rather known for being late but still I left the hotel at 4:10pm to catch a 4:20 train which would get me there by 5:20 so that I would be sure to be early. I managed to stand at the wrong platform and miss my train. UGH. Lesson one, always listen to Google Maps. If it says platform 4, even if you read the platform signs and you think platform 2 will work, defer to Google. Google is smarter than you. So then I went to the correct platform and with Japan and their amazing train system in my mind naively thought the next train would be within 15 minutes at most. It was like 50 minutes later. I was Barely going to make it to the terminal at exactly 5:45. Then my connecting train was late and I was sweating bullets on that train.

When I finally did get to "Terminal 1" I realized how big terminals are and this was no exception. I had to find my way from the bus station to the Terminal 1, Arrivals Door 4. I managed to get there by 5:50 which made me feel awful but I still had hope that simply the bus would be late. 25 agonizing minutes later and the bus finally showed up. By that time I had paired up with a middle aged Italian lady who was also confused as to the whereabouts to the bus and while the general bus station people didn't really have a ton of help for me due to the language barrier, she had no problem giving them the 9th degree about the whereabouts to the bus. I even heard her say "Mama Mia..." in a dismayed voice so all in all I think the ordeal was worth it. Seriously I had a travel god looking down on me that day who saved my butt from being so late. Big thanks for that.

The bus finally came at 6:15 and the bus drivers were in such a hurry to get us onboard. Fast forward 12 groggy hours and we made it to Solerno, Italy. Two more big lessons learned. 1. I ate breakfast at 10am at my hotel, left the hotel at 4 and wasn't hungry yet, and then boarded the bus at 6:15pm. The bus didn't stop and allow us off the bus again until 6:16am the next day. I was literally starving. I had one bag of cookies my friend left me and a bottle of water. I also didn't use the bathroom before getting on the bus. Yeah I paid dearly for both but luckily the bus did have functioning toilet on board but I was starving by this morning.

The second lesson was that the bus had "Free Wifi" but it didn't say unlimited so I got super excited and immediately used up my 500mb.... If they don't say unlimited, don't assume it is unlimited... Boo. That was actually quite the let down haha.

Also lastly, on our drives one of the things in Italy is while the Italian country side is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, the roads are weird. They are littered with roundabouts rather than stop lights and they generally make no sense. Here you can see a picture of our route to merge onto a different highway going the same direction as us. Rather than merge straight we make the symbol of a wizards staff and a magical swirly spiral to get onto the high way. Its also hard to tell but that covered 4 round abouts and a curved on ramp Beats me.

Also if you check the little notification it says "Avg. speed check passed." So in Italy and in the Netherlands they have what is called an Average Speed Check which means they scan your license plate at point A and again at point B and if the scan is too short of time for you to have been able to do it within the speed ticket you are automatically mailed a speeding ticket. Scary!

And here's a scenic late night pic of Lake Garda that I wasn't sure where else to put but I took it on an iPhone X which is 100% my next phone cuz wow.