40 DEGREES IN MILAN...

The trip in Italy is slowly coming to an end. We are leaving La Spezia today for Milan. It’s a 4 hour train ride from La Spezia to Milan. We start the morning by heading downstairs to breakfast after waking up in the freezer. We munch away on our breakfast, say our farewells to the hotel staff and start our stroll towards the train station. All in all I really have to say the hotel wasn’t that bad for the price we paid. It was a comfortable 3 star hotel located close to the train station.

Now this is the moment I have been trying to avoid – climbing the stairways with our entire luggage to the train station. Lucy starts climbing the stairs with her suitcase and I follow. We have to stop to rest in the middle part but realize it’s better to get this over and done with. We take it stage by stage...

Stage 1 of the never ending stairs

Next thing you know we quickly race to the next stage of the stairs with our entire luggage. By this stage we are both ready to collapse exhausted. We stop to catch our breath. We have actually done well. We allowed ourselves an extra 15 minutes to climb those stairs.

Stage 2 of the never ending stairs

We eventually reach the top of the stairway to be confronted by the train station ahead. We stand there watching people walk past until we decide to head inside the train station. By this stage we can breath again.

It was all going so well until we hit the elevator to go down to a platform. Lucy and I are in the elevator and its one of those clear window ones where you can see the outside. The elevator stops on our platform. Now it’s only Lucy and I in the elevator with our 15 suitcases. Lucy goes to open the door and it won’t open. Fuck we don’t know how to open the elevator door now. Meanwhile we spot our train on the platform. I hit panic mode and start slamming my hand against the glass door thinking someone might see from the outside and come to assist. So picture me banging my hand on a glass window like an idiot trying to seek help.The last thing I need now is to be stuck in a small elevator waving goodbye to our train. We some how manage to open the door and rush onto our train. Doors and we in Italy equal a huge problem.

We find our carriage on the train and immediately start lifting all our suitcases onto the racks. There is no way I am spending another 4 hours with no leg room. Lucy assists as we lift each suitcase onto the racks. We sit down to relax.

Our luggage taking up 1 whole rack

This feels so great having all this room to ourselves. We wait to see if anyone else will be joining us. Then all of a sudden we get an idea to pull the cabin door shut, close the curtains and sit in the dark, hoping no one will enter our cabin. What the fuck is wrong with us? Haha

The train takes off towards Milan as we sit in the dark giggling and laughing our heads off. We eventually realize were going to fall asleep in the dark and get gassed on the train if we don’t open the curtains. Lucy drags the curtains open as we sit back and relax.

Eventually we have a woman that enters our cabin at one of our stops. For some reason I feel a laughing fit coming on. i dont know why. I take one look at this woman and I want to laugh...

Random Italian Woman sitting next to me

At one of the spots this weird woman comes onto the train and into our carriage. I have to jump up to help her lift her suitcase onto the rack above Lucy. Now I don’t know how to explain this. This woman was a laughing fit waiting to happen. She looked like ET gone wrong. She had these eyes that just kept wandering around. At one stage I pulled my phone out and filmed her. She did this strange thing where she looked ahead, then up and did a 360 degree turn of her eyes around the carriage. The freaks we find on trains. Honestly she reminds me of someone from the 80's TV show Prisoner. She's like one of those crazy inmates, waiting to attack someone.

Freaky ET woman

We eventually pulled into Milan Central train station. The freaky woman got up to grab her suitcase which was above Lucy. I was sitting down watching when I saw the fright on Lucy’s face. She looked like she just saw a ghost or something. Next thing you know she yelled out to me “are you going to help?”. Lucy was scared that the freaky woman was going to drop her suitcase on her head if I didn’t assist. Of course I had to assist. The things I have to do to save Lucy’s head. Haha

We managed to jump off this train fine as this was the last stop. There was no way we could stuff this one up right? We started wheeling our suitcases looking for an information booth to find out how to get to our hotel. First thing we do is grab a trolley to stack all our suitcases onto.

After wandering around for a good 5 minutes Lucy decided to stay with the luggage while I went and found out. I spent 5 minutes walking to an information desk for it to be closed. I asked around and got told there was a tourist information office upstairs that could help me. I raced upstairs and found the tourist information office located in some back corner with lack of direction to it.

The guy behind the desk was very friendly and handed over a map to me. I raced outside to grab Lucy to head to the hotel. Lucy and I approached an escalator to realize it’s broken. The first thing we thought was fuck now we have to use the massive stair case to get this entire luggage down. As we started to take off the suitcases from our trolley I noticed another escalator behind us. I immediately pointed it out to Lucy. God were blond at times.

We started the walk towards the hotel. We had to stop to ask a few times but soon realized that the hotel was one block away. We started cheering once we spotted the sign of the hotel. We entered the hotel to notice half of the ground floor was under renovations. This should be Interesting. Now let me explain this before I go on. The reason we chose this hotel was simply because there was a statue in the lobby that we both saw on the website. The minute we saw the statue we both screamed we need to get a photo with that. I know were both fucked in the head. Who books a hotel because it has a statue? Well obviously us haha

So we approached the guy behind the counter who seemed like he was a sleep for a century or just woke up from a coma. He was completely lost. He handed over a key to us and pointed to the stairs. Fuck this place doesn’t have a lift. This means dragging every single piece of suitcase up 2 floors. It’s not like we have the option of staying on ground floor either. The marathon starts as Lucy grabs her suitcase up the stairs. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.

I manage to get my small trolley up the first level. I race back down to collect my large suitcase up. Lifting that thing at this stage is like lifting a camel. By the time I get to the room I’m about to collapse. I throw myself onto the nearest bed, dehydrating badly. I manage to get up and pull out my small bottle of Jack Daniels to take a few shots. I was dehydrating alright! There was no water so alcohol was the next best thing.

Lucy storms through the door screaming that I didn’t help her with her suitcase and she’s about to collapse. Woman I’ve already collapsed! We manage to sit for a few minutes to capture our breaths back. That was painful, very painful. This is what happens when you try and budget. I think this was a 2 star hotel. Wait it gets better. There’s no aircon but fans. I can probably survive but what about Lucy. Lucy will rip this place apart if she doesn’t have cool air.

The best part is it's 40 degrees today. I was checking the weather reports and I remember telling Lucy that Milan was hot. 40 degrees outside and no air con. This should be interesting. Lucy storms into the shower to cool down. Less than 5 minutes here and she’s already boiling hot. Great! I go back to my drinking. Nez would be so proud.

Lucy storms back out of the shower ready to slice someone up if she doesn’t cool down soon. I stroll over to the shower thinking I need water soon. I turn on the water to realize there is no hot water. I ask Lucy if she had hot water and she confirms that she did. Excellent no hot water in this palace as well. Since it’s hot I manage to have a cold shower.

It’s still boiling hot but our plan was to go visit the Duomo Milan today. We have already been inside of it with the tour group but our plan was to climb to the top of it. Lucy stated that we should do this today and put tomorrow aside for shopping in Milan. Stupidly I agreed to this plan. So we leave the hotel to catch a train to the Duomo.

We arrive at Milan city centre to walk pass Prada which only reminds me of Good Old Susan. We head towards the famous Milan Duomo. We enter the Duomo looking for the entrance to the roof. We eventually get told that we have to exit the Duomo and walk around the block to find another entrance point. Within seconds we are queued up to climb to the roof of the Duomo but first we have to go through security & bag checks.

We start climbing to the roof of the Duomo and let me say the view from the top is awesome minus the fact it’s 40 degrees plus. We start taking random photos and walking around in that heat. Lets hope I get a tan at least.

From the roof of the Milan Duomo:

The Famous Milan's Duomo

Another one of my Arty Shots:

I like the way this photo looks. You can see the other side of Milan City.

Time for a self pose:

Being Creative with the SLR:

When you look closely at the work carried out to build this Duomo you will be fascinated.

A proper photo of me on the roof:

15 minutes later I’m about to collapse onto the ground from the heat. I can’t believe we are doing this in this heat. Honestly someone needs to bitch slap some sense into us. Who in their right mind climbs to the roof of a Duomo in 40 degrees heat? Honestly I wish we did this first thing in the morning tomorrow rather than now. I suppose it’s too late to argue about that now.

I spot Lucy sitting down in the only area of shade. I rush over to sit next to her. We spend the next 15 minutes watching tourist. All of a sudden a huge Asian tour group filters in. We start obsessing over one of the Asian woman who is running around like a nutcase taking photos of people in her tour group. I don't know why this woman was so funny to us. I think the sun got to our heads...

Random Asian Woman

We eventually decide to force ourselves up to leave. The heat has sucked up all our energy. We leave the Duomo and start entering designer stores. Not that we can afford to buy anything but browsing is good. I would have to sell my kidney to get a Prada tie.

Of course I had to get a photo of the Milan Prada store:

Prada's Front window:

The Artists in Milan:

As were approaching the food court area I tell Lucy that I’m grabbing Burger King as I’m about to collapse. My sugar level has reached rock bottom. Lucy who would usually argue this point with me agrees. Next thing you know we have grabbed fatty Burger King meals and were sitting at a table stuffing our faces. That meal was so satisfying I can’t explain. It was like our body was craving for a fatty Burger King meal. It was one of the best meals we had in Italy!

NV being bad & eating Burger King in Milan

We eventually spot a large retail store similar to Myer. We decide to throw ourselves in there to cool down. We spend some time browsing through and cooling down.

Feeling satisfied we decide to head back to the hotel. We arrive at the hotel to complain to the reception guy that we have no hot water. He mutters something and we storm up the stairs. Were back at the room and its still boiling hot. Lucy opens every window we have while we settle in. I pull out my Jack Daniels for a quick shot. If Lucy is going to whinge about the heat, I need to be drunk.

We eventually crash for the night...