Varenna back to Milan


Dinner last night (Sept 30th) was at a lakeside restaurant where we watched the sun slowly drop behind the mountains as we dined on crepes, a well deserved change from pasta, pasta, pasta.
We checked out of our “prison cell” and stowed our luggage at the Tourist Information booth for a couple of hours while we explored the nearby monastery gardens.




The train to Milan took a little over an hour getting to Central Station and we spent a similar amount of time getting to our hotel. We didn’t realize until we were already there that the location of the hotel  supplied by my mapping program was at the complete opposite end of the street from its actual location. Susanna was rather unimpressed by the time we covered the additional 0.9km required to reach our lodgings.
 On the plus side, we did get to see some beautiful buildings but I don’t think she cared.
    Our accommodations, the Hotel Goldoni covers a couple of floors in a very large building with a central courtyard. The management charges an extra 5 € a night for air-con but with our room located on the ground floor I don’t think we need it. A fridge though is supplied to keep the beer and cheese cool.
 Tonight (Oct 1st) we dined a La Carrefore with take out rotisserie chicken, seafood salad and a nice Chianti.
 After several nights of it we have become a little tired of restaurant food. Especially as much of the shrimp and calamari is not fresh, but frozen prior to cooking. A selection of fresh fruit, figs and cheese was available for dessert.
 I spent the balance of the evening flipping channels on the TV- over 100 channels, all in Italian. Many featured hoaky game shows with ads showing single use kitchen gadgets and things to make your life “easier” and your wallet lighter. Faded old movies from maybe the 80’s showed some soft porn garbage that looked more funny than sexy. The odd cooking show seemed to focus more on humour than edible reproducible dishes. ( Anyone remember the Galloping Gourmet?)These were more like the “Clueless Chef” or Gordon Ramsey if he were pickled.🤦‍♂️
   The rest of the night I spent reviewing bus routes intended to get us to various points in the city tomorrow. Metro would be faster but there is nothing to see when you are travelling in tunnels.

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