We--myself (59), DH (60), and DS (30), flew on Saturday the 13th of December on Aer Lingus from Philadelphia to Dublin, and then from Dublin to Milan.

Flight from PHL was fine, if a bit tiring. Transfer was exciting. Dublin Airport is a maze anyway, and it turned out that it was a very good thing I had requested wheelchair assist, because we would never have found our gate to Milan on our own. It was in an older part of the terminal, and there was no jet bridge. Despite being tired, I decided that I could climb the stairs to the plane instead of doing the lift. I did make it without falling, but that was probably not a wise decision, and in Milan I had them put me on the lift, since I was very tired and stiff at that point.

Jet Bridge in Philadelphia

DS in airport

Once in Milan, we left the luggage with the hotel, IH Ambasciatori, and went to walk around. Lovely city, and since we were a bit peckish, we went up to the top of the Rinascente department store and had a lovely lunch with the Duomo right there!

Duomo

Duomo

DS waiting for lunch.

Lunch

Lunch

Looking forward to more. This is the itinerary that I was thinking about for later this year so would love to read this.

We had a blast. I'm not always the best at finishing trip reports, but I'll do what I can.

After lunch, we checked in, walked around, and had some dinner. Room was very European and a bit old fashioned, but absolutely fine. Hotel staff was great, breakfast very good.

Lego Duomo in a Lego shop window

After dinner we crashed early and were up the next morning in good time. After breakfast, we walked around the Duomo and the market around it (did not go inside the Duomo), and then towards Sforza palace, taking more pictures of Lego on the way and having a snack on the way back. One thing I noticed about Milan in winter--it tends to feel much milder than the actual air temperature would indicate, especially when the sun is out.

DS

Me

Sforza Palace

View from back of Palace

More Palace

DH

Lego

DS waiting for snack

Second snack from viral sandwich shop

Area by viral sandwich shop


Another snack, since DH and I didn’t want sandwiches

After the snack in the café with the cats, we went back to the hotel room, rested a little bit and got ready to go out. Then we did a little window shopping, and went back into the department store where DS and I had some sushi, which was very good but kind of pricey, and DH went back to the place where we had lunch the previous day and had more pizza. Then we did a little more window shopping, walked around the Duomo market and Galleria Vittorio Emanuel, and decided to have some sandwiches in the market, and then a little night cap in the covered outside area of a restaurant.

Trip Report flag and country tags added

Window

Dress I do not need

Bougie purses

Pastry case

Sushi

Market

Life-size marzipan fruit in the market

Nightcap

Thanks!

Our intention for Tuesday had been to go to Como on a train. The weather had other ideas. It was very, very wet, and we decided that was a poor idea. So we just sort of bopped around, did some window shopping and a little actual shopping, and tried to stay dry. We also ended up in a thrift shop, which is one of DS’s very favorite things.

Unfortunately, this particular shop wasn’t that great for him, since they didn’t have much in the way of men’s clothes, jewelry or collectibles. It was mostly all women’s clothes, some of them very nice indeed. Which brings us to the emotional support fur. I like vintage fur coats a lot. I did however leave both of the ones I’m currently wearing at home, for many, very sensible reasons, and wore a nice black wool coat. However, this chop had quite a few fur coats, very reasonably, and I sort of ended up with an attractive pieced jacket, probably from the 1980s, for a whole €80. Which seemed a little silly, but made me happy, and I periodically wore it throughout the trip.

Fancy window shopping



DS waiting for a snack

View of market and Duomo from restaurant window

Snack

More Snack

Staying dry in the Galleria

Very fancy window shopping in the galleria


Emotional support fur

The next day we were up ridiculously early to take the train to Tirano. Because we were way too early for breakfast the hotel very thoughtfully packed us a breakfast bag. This was mostly sweets, but had some juice as well and was extremely thoughtful of them. That train was just a regular commuter train and was unfortunately quite crowded especially as we got closer to Tirano, but the trip was fine, if a little sardine like. When we got to our destination, we left the bags with the hotel, Hotel Bernina, bought a snack to take with us, and turned up for the Bernina express, which was the entire point of this detour.

We did book the panoramic train with the commentary for the trip up to St. Moritz, and we didn’t exactly regret it, but if we took the trip again, which we might, we would take the regular train, which we had booked for the trip back to Tirano. We had a second class carriage in the panoramic train and it was kind of chaotic. Enough so that we didn’t even open our lunch.

The stop at Alpe Grum was really cool though, and the commentary was interesting, but the trip back was much more peaceful and comfortable. Although it probably did help that we booked a first class carriage for the return.

Tirano

DS on Bernina Express



Alpe Grum

DS in St. Moritz

Snow

More snow

DH on train

The scenery on the train was everything we had hoped for, despite the day being a bit gray, and we definitely felt it was worth the effort to get there. We did have a little snack from the convenience store in the train station in St. Moritz, and finally unpacked and ate the lunch, including a bottle of wine we had bought in the station buffet in Tirano, on the way back. This was also one of the segments where I was glad of the fur jacket, despite the silliness of dragging two coats around Europe.