This trip seemed to have crept up on me but I was nonetheless excited that the time had come to revisit Italy NOT during the winter! My mother and I will be travelling around Italy for just over 2 weeks supporting Lara who is part of PLC's chorale and chamber strings groups touring Italy.
 |
| Finally! Green green Italy below us |
Our 6am flight to Dubai was full but we were blessed with having a friendly and polite young man sitting in our row. The nearly 14 hour trip other being long was thankfully uneventful and I was able to complete 4 movies as well as snooze intermittently. I was worried about regretting not taking up Emirates offer to upgrade our Dubai to Milan leg from economy to business. Fortunately that flight was half empty and we were able to sprawl making it quite a pleasant flight. The $795 that I saved by NOT upgrading to business can now be channeled to my leather goods funds instead.
The only frustration on our travel day turned out to be immigration at Milan Malpensa. The line for non-European passport holders was horrendously long. We looked up in horror at the reason for this. There was only a total of 3 officers processing for immigration. After about 40 minutes, the 2 officers who were processing EU citizens were able to help out. Over an hour later, we finally cleared immigration and collected our bags.
Our transfer to Varenna was organised by the hotel and he was waiting patiently outside for us. We were delighted to see a nice big clean van to transport us the Lake Como region. The journey took 90 minutes and it was a struggle to stay awake. The driver was very friendly and we relieved as the ride cost 30 Euros less than any other transfer that we were able to get quotes for ourselves! 130 euros was a reasonable amount for such a long private transfer.
Our hotel was a small but quaint. Despite arriving at 1130pm, there was someone waiting for us and check in was quick. Our room was basic but clean. Despite the thunderstorm, we crashed from exhaustion.
 |
| Our big van for just the 2 of us! |
 |
| Our room |
 |
| With windows facing the town's Piazza |
I only just thought to check your blog! Good to see you've started early.
ReplyDelete