Day 10: from Rapallo to Milano

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Today was a travel day, packing up and leaving Rapallo on the coast, for a 2 hour 16 minute train ride to Milano, which is where we will spend the final three nights of vacation.  We both really liked Rapallo, with its slower pace, waterfront bars and restaurants, easy to explore backstreets, and fresh air.  Orange trees are scattered about, and we would see oranges sitting on parked cars and along the sidewalk.  Prices also seemed to be better for most things compared to our other destinations.

The staff at the hotel were very nice, although the room was a bit small, and the included breakfast was good.  I had negotiated a discount on the room rate if I paid in cash instead of using the credit card (we also did that at the Venice hotel), so on our final morning, I walked to an ATM to get euros.  It was the first time that I'd used the ATM card since Saturday when buying train tickets, and card had worked fine for several ATM withdrawals at the beginning of our trip in Venice.  However, this morning it would not be accepted at a few ATM machines that I tried, so I returned to the hotel to call the bank.  I explained the situation and the customer service rep said that it should not have been declined, since I had notified them of the travel plans in advance, and they would have it fixed in 20 minutes.  More packing, then another walk to the ATM, and still declined.  Another phone call, one more  try at the ATM and another failure.  We were running out of time, since we had to walk 10 minutes to the train station and catch the 11:34 train, so I paid with my Capitol One Visa card, because they do not charge a foreign expense service charge, like the TV commercial says.  Unfortunately, the ATM problem cost me the $60 discount on the hotel bill, but it's good to always have a backup plan when traveling.

Here's a photo of the train station in Rapallo as we await the train:

For most of the public transit systems, the ticket process is somewhat honor-based.  Even though we had used the water bus in Venice, several city buses in Torino, and trains from Venice to Torino, and again from Torino to Rapallo, we had never been asked to show our tickets.  Finally on this train ride we were asked by an official, and I just showed him the email attachment on my iPad that was emailed to me when I bought the tickets online.  Even though it's unlikely you'll be asked to show the ticket, if you don't have it when you are asked, the fine is very steep, so we take no chance.

Below is a photo of the train station in Milano.  For most train stops, the station is as above, just a building alongside the tracks that pass through the town.  In the bigger cities though, they more often like this, where a dozen or more trains pull into a large station, and then back out the same way they came.  As a matter of fact, that's how it was a few days ago when the four of us went from Venice to Torino, because that train stopped in Milano along the way, although we didn't have to change trains.  On the leg from Venice to Milano, Mindy and Nate had a forward facing view and we had the backward facing view, because we were seated facing each other.  We speculated whether the train would turn around, in order to resume the journey, but it did not - the train simply went I the opposite direction, so that Monday and Nate then had the backward facing view and we had the forward facing view.

After arrival in Milano, we got on the subway and rode 4 stops, came out of the ground in the center of town, and walked 2 blocks to out hotel.  Here we are checking in:

This is the view from our room.  Such a location is a bit more expensive, but the convenience is more important in the bigger cities to save time, and we've learned that a more comfortable room is better appreciated towards the end of the vacation, as we become more tired.

We wandered about Milano, found a great restaurant without an English menu (food pictures soon), and got a couple of nice photos of the Duomo in the evening after the crowds had thinned.

And this is how the blog happens:

Tomorrow a guided tour in the morning, and we'll also see the 15th century mural painting, The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci!