Europe Part 3

Day 5 Our hotel was near the main train station in Milano. In many European cities there is a good selection of hotels near the main train station. This tends to be very convenient for us travellers. Milan has a subway/underground system that worked well for us. Our hotel room was not completely ready when we arrived so the manager gave us passes to the subway system.
We wanted to explore the center of the city and also find a place for dinner. Most restaurants of note are closed in August in Milano. I did have 1 place in mind that was supposed to be open. We tried to find it but it was so far away from transportation that we gave up.
We went to the Duomo and it was magnificent.

The manager of our hotel recommended a restaurant in the center of the city and we ate dinner there. I ordered a valpocella and when they poured me some to taste, it smelled awful. I rejected the wine and ordered  a piemonte wine. I believe that it was a dolcetti di alba. I had veal milanese and we shared a risotto milano. The meal was good but it was officially the day of our 25th anniversary, so the meal was special.

Day 6 Milano is a fun city. We had perfect weather - low 80's and no humidity. We saw the Last Supper. The fresco was better than expected.We had to take a walking tour to get into the last supper but we enjoyed the tour. The guide was very personable.

We went to the Pinacoteca di Brera. A great museum that is not my taste. Old paintings.

We enjoyed the Castello Sforzesco. After 4:30 admission is free. A variety of things including  Michelangelo's Rondanini Pieta. We walked thru Peck, Milan's fancy food place. Things looked nice but nothing excited us.
We found lots of small food shops in Milan despite all of the guidebooks telling us that everything is closed in August. Lots of gelati.
For dinner we at in the Navigli area (above). It was a beautful evening and we ate outside on a table by the canal. Pizza, salad and beer. For dessert we found a gelati place.

Day 7  We left Milano and headed for Zurich. This was to be our longest driving day. We headed towards Lake Como. We followed the road along Lake Como for 40 kilometers. The lake was beautiful and we tried to stop in Menaggio but it was very crowded and we could not find a place to park. Bellagio looked beautiful across the lake but we did not go there.

Bellagio

We decided to eat lunch in Lugano and then  followed the road to Lugano which is on Lake Lugano and in Switzerland. Lugano looked like a nice city. We went down to the lake and found a place for lunch. We instantly found out that Switzerland is much more expensive than Italy.

We left Lugano and found the highway to Zurich. The road went thru the St Gotthard pass tunnel. About 5 kilometers from the tunnel the traffic stopped. I thought that there was a major accident. We got out of the car and spoke with other people. Apparently the tunnel is one lane in each direction and  going from a 2 lane highway to a 1 lane tunnel creates huge jams at busy times. The tunnel is 17 kilometers long and with traffic it took us about 3.5 hours to go thru.

Zurich was OK. We only spent a night and a morning there. We stayed at the Marriott. Not usually my choice in Europe but I used Priceline for the first time and paid $125 for a night at the hotel. The usual rate at the hotel was $500. The hotel was very nice and it was the fanciest hotel on our trip. 2 people could fit in the bathroom. This is big in Europe.

We scouted the Bahnhofstrasse (the main street) and found chocolate shops. Our goal in Zurich was to buy lots of great chocolate truffles. We found Teuschers, Sprungli and Merkur. We bought 100 grams of truffles for a snack and went to dinner. We ate dinner in the old town. It was very touristy and expensive. We found a tapas restaurant and ate well outside on the cobblestone street. We then found a cafe with Teuschers pastries and had dessert.

Day 8 We had to be at the airport by 1pm so I went out at 10am and bought my chocolates at the 3 stores that we had scouted the night before. I bought about 1 and 1/2 pounds. We brought a cold pack bag with us so I could get them home in the best condition possible.

We drove to the airport and took our flight to Munich. We flew 1st class on a small Lufthansa commuter plane. We were served very interesting food. A square of smoked salmon and sundried tomato cottage cheese. A 6 oz can of Sprite.

It took a long time to retrieve our luggage in Munich. We took the train which ended 4 stops before our stop so we had to change trains and haul our luggage. We checked into our hotel which was modern and different. A glass shower was in the room. The upside - the bathroom was more spacious. Flemings Munchen-City. This hotel was also near the main train station which made life easy since we did not have a car in Munich.

We went straight to the Viktual market for our beer. Had 1/2 liter of Spaten with giant soft pretzels. The pretzels are fabulous. How they made their way across the Atlantic and became the disgusting thing sold in the US is beyond my ability to comprehend.

Dinner at Altes Hackerhaus. They serve Hacker Pschorr beer.Great beer hall. We ate in the atrium which was glass covered. We shared a giant slab of  pork with the crackled skin accompanied by a giant potato dumpling.  Had Hacker Pshorr Dunkel, Hell and Pilsner. The Pilsner was very good.

Guess which glass is mine. Winner will be announced in the coming weeks.