Day 6 - Tirano to Milan

Alarm clocks again this morning. We have another train to catch. We were booked onto the 9:08 to Milan. However thanks to Andrea, the hotel owner, we knew that there had been a landslide along the route by lake Como (due the recent high rainfall) and part of the line was closed and replaced by bus. Replacement bus service - the phrase that fills even the most patient person with fear.

Lovely Andrea made us a wonderful breakfast, complete with cherries from his parents’ garden and then dropped us at the station. We managed to catch an earlier train than scheduled and before long we were chugging along through the vineyards on our way to Colico.

At Colico, everyone disembarked and we followed the herd of people to the buses. Easy peasy. The bus took us along the banks of Lake Como and then onto the autostrade, which was a shame, as the inside of a tunnel is not as nice as the outside. 50 minutes later we were deposited at Lecco station where we had a coffee and a 20 minute wait for the train to Milan.

The weather today is a bit grey, but still beautifully warm.

We boarded our train to Milan, which was busy and we passed some unremarkable suburban landscape before pulling into Milano Centrale. The station is huge, and crazy. Full of people trying to navigate their journeys. We found our way to the Metro, Line 1 for our hotel.

We had a ten minute walk to our hotel - the Antica Locanda Leonardo. A beautiful hotel tucked away from the hustle and bustle of this busy, noisy city. We have a great room up in the eaves.

After a quick wash we set out to see the Duomo, the cathedral and main attraction of the city. We couldn’t help but notice that it is the Champions League final tonight between Man City and InterMilan. The square in front of the cathedral was packed with fans wearing the blue and black of Internazionale. They were chanting and waving their flags, and though not threatening we wondered if we’d made a mistake in our itinerary.

We queued for tickets for the Duomo and were told that they were sold out for today, so we are booked in for tomorrow. We found a small cafe for lunch, Andrew had a sliced boar meat and olive paste panini (of course he did) while I had a delicious salad.

We walked around a little and then entered the main area for designer shopping - Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. When I looked inside this beautiful covered shopping area I cried. Despite the throngs of people, you could still take in the beauty by simply looking up.

We then headed to the Novecento musuem which has modern art (all 20th century) so this was right up our street. The building was like a small version of the Guggenheim in New York, with sweeping white spiral slopes to take you up to the top of the building. Great view of the Duomo too!

We really loved the art here and it was a nice way to spend a few hours. After this we treated ourselves to an ice cream and walked to our next stop. Villa Necchi Campiglio. This is a house that has been restored by the Italian version of the National Trust. It was built in 1932 by an Italian architect for a wealthy Milan resident and entrepreneur. It is a stunning place. It’s been very sympathetically restored despite being commandeered in WW2 by the Italian army and then the British. We could imagine it being very much a party place. It was the first private home in Milan to have a swimming pool.

After two hours of dreaming that we owned the place, we caught the number 16 tram back to the hotel where we relaxed and read until dinner time.

We caught the 16 tram back into the centre of Milan and had a delicious last meal just near the main square, near the famous La Scala opera house.

There were lots of football fans hanging around trying to watch the match on screens in the bars, and sadly, they did not win, but we were safely back in our hotel when the final whistle went.

The City seems very quiet now.

Last day tomorrow.