Ljubljana, Slovenia, to Milan, Italy, Sunday June 29th

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We travelled by bus from Ljubljana to Venice Mestre and then by train to Milan. It seemed shocking to me that we were so close to the city of Venice and only seeing the interior of a station, but we had decided that Italy would have to wait until maybe later in the trip or until another time. We had a picnic lunch on the Venice Mestre station platform, to the amusement of the other travellers.
The train was smooth, quiet and fast. We travelled through mountains and past villages nestled in valleys. Our designated seats were occupied by others, so we took some empty ones further up the carriage. Soon a priest arrived to sit opposite us, dressed in a black robe with a head-hugging bonnet embroidered with silver stars on it. He had a large, wiry beard and made absolutely no eye contact with us at all. He could have been someone from the Middle Ages or the dark ages, existing in a parallel time frame and thus unaware that people sat directly opposite him on a train. This illusion was shattered when he produced a McDonald’s lunch and a bottle of Coca Cola. He ate carefully, wiping his beard after every mouthful and looking nowhere at all. Later he opened his laptop and spent a few minutes reading and typing. Compared to the many friendly clergy we have known, he was an enigma. A young man arrived and told the priest that he was sitting in the young man’s seat. The priest glanced briefly in his direction, as if at a current of wind, and then continued to gaze inwardly. The young man gave up and disappeared. Some others said the same to us, so we went back to our allocated seats, as part of the domino effect that happens on trains if even one person ignores the seat numbers. Luckily our seats were now available and we spent the rest of the trip chatting to two others there, young people who had just finished working on a cruise ship, one as a masseuse and the other as a casino technician. The casino can’t operate when the ship is in port, and the need for massages is less, so they had plenty of stories to tell about their travels.
We arrived in Milan in the late afternoon and booked into our hotel near the station. The parrot at reception had learnt to make the sound of a camera clicking for a photo, so when we took its picture, it provided the sound effects. We knew we were in Euroland because of the cost of the room and the charge to use the wireless internet – free everywhere else we have stayed, but five euros for the password here and five Euros per hour if you want to use their computer!
We wandered out for a look around, with the exterior of the station being a building of great size and very grandiose. Finding the tourist office inside the station was a major challenge and the lady there was not interested in tourists or in helping them in the slightest. She gave us a map and went through a mechanical spiel at speed of what we should see, drawing circles on the map which later meant nothing to us. There were no information pamphlets – we could buy a book if we wanted but not there; try a bookshop. She needed to go on exchange to the Ljubljana station tourist office to see how it should be done.
This end of town has many large buildings lining the streets and joined together, a long square in front of the station, and a tall, thin but elegant sky scraper dating from the 1950s. Really we were too tired for sightseeing so we only did a tour of a couple of blocks, observing the complex layout of the tram tracks, before requiring refreshments. It was boiling hot but Keith had a cappuccino since he was in Italy.
Our dinner was in a very well set out, and up market (for us) Pizzeria. It was really a Japanese restaurant, serving a little Italian food, but specialising in Sushi and such like. Not a totally Italian eating experience, but close. My vegetarian pizza had thin strips of carrot, eggplant and zucchini on it. It had a very thin and delicious crust, so it was probably the ‘real thing.’
Just as we settled back into our hotel room, a wild thunder storm started. The streets were awash with many centimetres of water and poor travellers were soaked in minutes as they tried to carry their heavy pull-along bags. A boy sought refuge in a bus shelter but the swirling winds did not leave even a tiny spot dry. I was writing to our son, Rohan, and every now and then my attention wandered to the storm, especially when a car swished by through the floods sending up curtains of spray.

Above: Milan Station
Below: Street scenes around Milan