World Italy Lombardia Milan

Tripping with Judy and Herman HomeSwap2Nederland+?

Panic in Milano 11 May 2010

Tuesday 11th May 2010 Weather:-Grey, dull and rain but NOT cold 10:50am Venice to Milan by train Arrive 13:25---Ibis Milano Centro 12:45pm:-Getting to the station was a bit of a challenge today as it looked like 'change-over day' in every hotel in Venice but then I imagine that could be the same every day. On the ferries it looked like they were trying to break the Guinness Book of Records title for 'How many People we can fit on a small boat'. The people must get sick of the change of faces but then I suppose by now they may be immune to it. Elderly ladies with their shopping trolleys were battling to get onto the ferries, but at least most of them were offered seats. Our train tickets are a lot more expensive today than they were the other day (about double) but we are on the Intercity EuroStar from Venice to Milan a distance of approximately 272k which we will do in 2 1/2 hours while riding in comfort. Herman is glad he is not driving as it is absolutely bucketing down with rain. 8pm:-A visit to the ticket office at the Milan Central station to make enquiries as to train departures and to buy tickets for our trip to Cortona on Thursday morning bought about a surprise, our Visa card would not work. We had minor problems a couple of times in France as some petrol stations and toll roads would not take foreign cards so with a bit of frustration we went off to find a Bancomat (ATM), what is this—the Bancomats have also stopped spitting money at us----after two tries with my card and one try with Herman's we thought it advisable to find a bank before our cards were swallowed up. Entering a bank in Milano is an experience in itself; first you have to push a button so that the people in the bank can eye you up and down then if they like the look of you a third of a perpendicular glass torpedo tube slides open and allows one person at a time to enter, when the glass panel closes behind you another panel in front of you opens so that you can step into the bank and all of this was repeated to let Herman in behind me. Chairs are available while you wait your turn. A look around the bank made me think that it looked more like an old fashioned post office (before retail became their main game) and after explaining our predicament we were told "sorry I cannot help you, we do not keep money in here---you will have to use the Bancomat on the footpath" so with reassurances that if my card was swallowed up the accountant would get it back for me we proceeded with the proposed transaction, at least this machine spoke a better sort of English and the gist of it was "contact your bank in Australia". Panic stations were starting to set in, had our unwanted visitors gotten to our bank accounts? Do we hitchhike to Rome and beg for food on our travels or do we have to ring up Leah and ask her to wire us some money? Luckily I have a direct phone number to one of the demi-gods that control these things in our bank and as I can never remember the verbal password that is needed it only took 4 minutes and twenty questions to release our cash. What went wrong you ask—well yes, we had told the demi-god that we would be travelling on this side of the world again but nobody had told their computer. Thank goodness for mobile phones. By this time the Heavens had opened up again so it was back to the hotel for a relaxing drink in their foyer bar, I told Herman that this journal is starting to sound like a European pub crawl but he just laughed, his excuse is "that we needed something to calm us down" as everything that 'could go wrong—has gone wrong'—but we are still standing and we can still laugh about most of it.

Advertisement