This content is protected against AI scraping.
So, this morning, I left the Cristal Hotel in Frankfurt, which I wholly recommend, by the way, and walked across to Frankfurt Hbf. That took me all of five minutes. Then I needed to find coffee. I guess I could have had a coffee back at the hotel but I really wanated a latte so headed to the station instead.
There are very few places to sit at Frankfurt Hbf. There are high tables outside the concession stands but that’s it. Upon searching, however, I found a place that had seats, proper tables and coffee. The perfect spot to wait for my train to Milan via Zurich.
It gave me time to think about why I liked the hotel so much. Of course there was the tattoed lady at reception who spoke 300 lamguages fluently and joked a lot in all of them. Then, of course, there was the amazing shower. Proper glass screen, wonderful pressure and scalding hot. There was even a grab rail.
Seriously, I didn’t want to leave.
But, of course, leave I must. And, eventually my train pulled into the platform, ten minutes late.
Train 7: Frankfurt Hbf to Zurich
Because it wasn’t really late enough, after it cleared the station, it slowed down and stopped, waiting for another five minutes. This was fine. I knew, from experiences of the past, that the train would arrive in Switzerland on time just because that is the way of things.
I settled back and relaxed. Read a bit, watched a bit of the new, rather odd version of the Lizzie Bordon story and just stared out of the window.
And, would you believe it? I know I did. We arrived in Basel, Switzerland dead on time. I don’t know how this happens but, there you go. It does and it did.
It was then just a final run to Zurich, where we arrived three minutes early.
There was 30 minutes before my train, which was a good thing because my carriage was so far down platform 7 that I expected to arrive in Milan before I reached it.
That was a slight exaggeration.
Train 8: Zurich to Milan
Of course, being out of Germany, things just improved and improved. I arrived yesterday, before I left Hamburg and…don’t be silly Gary.
The journey on this final train was gorgeous. We skirted a big lake for most of it, dipping in and out of long tunnels only to emerge into high mountains, scattered with cows that had shorter legs on the uphill side. It was truly beautiful. As was the view of the lake.
Then we arrived in Italy. I was sure the clocks would start speeding up in order to make us properly late but, no, it seems that the facists have finally got ther trains to run on time. At least they did mine today. I arrived at Milan Central dead on time. Extraordinary.
Actually, it wasn’t my final train. I had to take the Metro two stops to get to our accommodation. And, I feel I have to say, Milan Central could do with better signage. Or, rather, some signage.
Train 9: Milan Central to Loreto via M2 Green Line
I have to admit, I really have no idea how I got from the Milan railway station central concourse to Green Metro Line 2 and then onto a train to Loreto, but I did. It was Weasel Instinct guiding me, I’m certain. It didn’t help being rush hour.
Anyway, I eventually found my way back up onto the street and headed for the flat where I was met by the charming Francesco who showed me around the apartment and instructed me in the use of the many, many keys.
Then I waited for John and Lindy to arrive. I may have written some of this blog while I waited.
They turned up, walking from the Loreto Metro stop, the same as I did. I met them on the corner so I could show them how to acces the Flat of Many Doors and the Keys That Go In Them. We had very important cups of tea and coffee before heading out for dinner.
Where we are there are plenty of crap places to eat but John found the pearl among the swine. Osteria il Melograno is just the other side of Piazzali Loreto from where we are staying in Pavlova Street*. The woman running it made up a couple of tables and sat us down.
We were treated like family. She served some delicious meals (she is from Puglia and a lot of the meals are traditionally from there) and had a splendid time. So much so that we will probably eat there again.
Having stuffed ourselves, we then returned to the flat, unlocking and locking the thousand doors before deciding who was sleeping where. The flat soon filled with contented snoozing.
Tomorrow we start our assault on Milan.
* It’s not really called Pavlova Street but it looks enough like it for an Australian to instantly rename it Pavlova.
