Travel Day

Here is George in the JFK Airport in New York.  We're on our way!  So far everything has gone well, but can you tell that air travel isn't our favorite way to spend 24 hours?

After a two-hour layover in New York, we were heading to Milan!  The second flight also went well.  It was fun hearing the directions given in English and then Italian.

Once we arrived in Milan, we bought tickets for the 40 minute train ride into downtown.  Then we took a taxi for the short trip to our residence - Residence via Corso Italia.  Now I really know why I prefer only taking carry-on bags when we travel.  Hauling those heavy suitcases just through the airport and onto the train was a lot of trouble. After dropping off our luggage, we took a little walk around the city while we waited for our apartment to be ready.

Here I am in front of Milan Cathedral.  It is the centerpiece of Milan and the fourth largest church in Europe. It's built of pink Candoglia marble.  Begun in the 13 hundreds, the Dukes of Milan were hoping to impress Germany and France. With its many, many spires, I know I'm impressed. We can hear its bells ringing from our apartment.

After a bit of an afternoon nap, we headed out for dinner.  What a time we had finding the restaurant our door-woman recommended.  We wandered here, there, everywhere.  She had said it was just down the street, but where???  We stopped to ask some passersby for help, but although they had heard of it, they didn't know exactly where it was.  We wandered a little more and then the woman we had asked for directions came running up.  She had looked up the address on her smart phone and took the time to chase us down and tell us where it was!  Wow! Such a kind thing to do!

So far I have been very impressed with the kindness of the people of Milan.  At the airport we were trying to be very careful with our possessions, money, and passports because we had read there were lots of pick pockets in that area.  When we were trying to buy our train tickets from the machine, we accidentally put our briefcase down and then forgot about it and walked away from it.  A woman came up behind us and handed us our briefcase! My jaw dropped open and I almost started to cry,  what a mess it would have been if we had lost the contents of that case!  How kind of her to take care of two jet-lagged tourists!

And finally, here we are at Bio Pizza enjoying a wonderful meal of pasta with fresh tomato sauce with a nice little house red.