Milan to Nice

December 12-14, 2014 – Milan and onward to Nice, very slowly

We arrived in Europe on Thursday morning having been up most of the night flight with screaming babies, so when United finally deposited us at Milan’s Malpensa airport we were delighted to get off the plane.  We headed for the nearest café for a real espresso, which was as good as it gets and washed away a lot of the aches and pains of a long coach flight.  We took the train from the airport to downtown Milan and then walked to our hotel, which was only five blocks away.  We were thrilled to find that our room was ready and we didn’t have to wait until 3 pm to check in, so we hastily unpacked and took a long walk around town to stretch our muscles and prepare ourselves for lunch. We found a nice little bar called Aperitivi, which was what we needed and we enjoyed a glass of wine before heading to another little spot for a light lunch followed by a long nap.

Our friends Roberto and Maria came to the hotel at 18:30 and we wandered around looking for a good restaurant and enjoying a few glasses of wine on the wander. Dinner was unexpectedly delightful and tons of fun.

While in Milan we saw the labor protests on Friday and we knew that there could be problems due to strikes over the weekend.  However, on Sunday when we were scheduled to take the train to Nice the day started with the same guarantees that the night before had ended with, “Yes, your train to Ventimiglia will go as scheduled.”  We were of course concerned but since this was a high-speed train, it would go as scheduled at 9:10 AM.  We arrived at the train station in plenty of time and sure enough our train was at the assigned platform and loading passengers.  We settled into our cabin along with three others traveling to Ventimiglia.  At 9:00 it was announced that the train would depart on time but that it would terminate in Savona due to the work action of the striking railway workers.  We quickly established from our new friends in the cabin that Savona was about 120 KM away from Ventimiglia, but they thought there would be buses to take us there so that we could get a French train to Nice.  Besides, the notice was too short to get off the train and we didn’t have a backup plan, so we departed for Savona right on time.

Savona has no bus service to Ventimiglia, or anywhere else that we can determine. The station itself is modern and filled with marble and glass but doesn’t have a place to wait for trains so everyone sits on luggage with nothing to do. If you gamble, there was a large casino but no restaurant.  A taxi to Ventimiglia would have cost 240 Euros so that was a no-brainer.  There is one hotel nearby but no one was quite sure where and we really didn’t want to stay in another hotel when we were trying to reach our apartment in Nice.  We were promised that a train would run at 17:29 which meant we had a lovely five and a half hour wait – what a kick-off to the birthday weekend!

As of 17:15 and we had been there for five plus hours and we headed to the platform where the train to Nice was supposed to arrive in fifteen minutes. And then we were finally on the train and moving in the right direction, oh joy unbound.  Got as far as Ventimiglia and thought all was well for our arrival in Nice at 8 pm but Lady Luck seemed to be deaf, dumb and blind to our needs.  Seems the Italian workers got one more jab at us before we headed into France because the train engine needs to be changed at the border due to different track gauges.  Normally this is a five-minute operation but after a half hour of sitting at the border we were told that there were no Italian work crews to do the changeover so the French had to handle the entire operation.  Finally, en route again and in France thinking we would be arriving at 8:30 pm but the French had a surprise for us and we stopped at Menton where three of the largest, blackest police officers in the country boarded our carriage and went right to four young men and demanded their passports.  After about ten minutes they took all four off the train and we were finally underway again. Such drama!  (We asked a French train official but he didn’t know what the problem was; the men didn’t look all that threatening but you never know!)

Arrived at the apartment at about 8:45 and were met by the manager who showed us all the tricks - and then we raced to a bistro arriving at 9:15, a mere 12 hours after departing Milan. For the record, you can drive from Milan to Nice in a bit over three hours.  However, we were delighted to sit down to glasses of Champagne, a hot meal and cold wine, and all was well with the world.

Cindy and Wm