Sunday, July 08, 2012

2012 Italy - Day 17 - to Milan


The kids slept very late. Sharon and I had breakfast in the hotel. I took off early on my own, while Sharon packed up the room. My plan for the morning was to tour the Galleria dell’Accademia. This is billed as the greatest collection of Venetian Renaissance paintings. It is a fairly small museum. I found the paintings interesting due to their use of color. The paintings seem brighter than similar Renaissance painting in other places. They used a lot of brighter reds, blues and greens.

Heading back to the hotel, we got everyone organized and went to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. It includes a very good selection of 20th century art. Sharon and I had visited the museum when we were there 16 years ago and found it a nice change of pace. I read Peggy’s biography a number of years ago. I particularly enjoyed the Jackson Pollacks and Pablo Picassos. I have read biographies of both of these painters.

Sharon and I always talk about having a glass of soft wine at a stand up bar when we were Venice for our honeymoon. We made a quick stop at a place that might have been the same place on the way back to the hotel…

Back at the hotel, we finished packing the room. We took a water taxi from the hotel to the train station. Just like sixteen years ago when we tried to leave Florence, we found that there was a train strike going on. Unlike our honeymoon, this strike didn't impact us. The regional trains were being cancelled, but the high speed train that we booked left on time.

We took a train three hours nonstop from Venice to Milan. There is some beautiful countryside in Northern Italy, including lots of vineyards during the first half of the trip. Sitting on the train looking through the reservations, we realized that we had booked a room at the wrong airport. While international flights fly from an airport about 30 miles outside of Milan, Europe flights fly out of Linate which is about 5 miles from the downtown.

Scrambling, we made reservations for the Crowne Plaza near the right airport. By the time we found a taxi, got to the hotel and got checked in, it was after 4 p.m.

We had been talking about going into downtown Milan for dinner. At this point in the trip, we were starting to get a little travel weary and less aggressive. Based on a recommendation from the hotel staff, we walked to find a local restaurant that specialized in Milanese food. Unfortunately, it was closed. We ended up walking about a mile to a place called Ai Du Orsi (Two Bears). The food was fine, but we probably should have just stayed at the hotel for hamburgers (the original plan).

With a long travel day planned for tomorrow, we crashed early.

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