17. Milan: April 27 2023.

Messy day… I’m now in my third room at the hotel, and they only have 21 rooms. But hopefully this is my spot for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for all the notes about Mike’s health and my gout attack. Mike’s on Paxlovid, which we brought with us from the states. Good thing, because I don’t think they prescribe it here. I’m doing better although I probably shouldn’t have walked as much as I did today—about 3.5miles. Since I had to be near the hotel to move my stuff from room to room, once the new room was ready, I just took a short walk back in Piazza Duomo and through the Galleria. Follow-up on the Leonard Cohen “Hallelujah,” it seems as if all of the different singers who perform in the piazza do at least one Leonard Cohen song each day. So high likelihood that you catch it a few times in a day…. which is fine by me.

The pigeons were out in full force, as they usually are and as they have been for decades (or maybe centuries?) Once the room was ready, I got settled in it and then had to deal with returning the rental car. Since Mike has been doing most of the driving and I’ve been the navigator, I was a bit concerned about being both the driver AND the navigator, having to negotiate getting from the hotel which is in a pedestrian zone to the train station. I asked the rental car people if they would pick up the car but that wasn’t going to work. Then one guy at the front desk suggested that he could drive his motor scooter in front of me and he’d lead me to the rental return. But in the end Mike decided that he could handle driving the car if I navigated… we both wore N95 masks in the car and kept the windows wide open. Once we got to the drop-off (near the Central Station), Mike got into a taxi and headed back to his isolation room at the hotel.

I strolled the area and neighborhood near the station and also walked through the Mercato Centrale—a hip series of food stalls, with great graphics and good food. Then I headed to what they call Platform 21 (a secret underground platform) where Jewish prisoners from the San Vittore Prison lined up to be loaded on freight cars and taken on trains to extermination camps. It was 3:35 when I got there, knowing it closed at 4. Turns out you have to be there 30 minutes before closing. So, I probably won’t see it, unless I come back to this area another day.

Then I walked to the Metro station and decided to test Milan’s public transit which seems pretty efficient if you’re in the central area. Got back to the hotel, checked in on Mike, and then decided to go to the restaurant where Mike and I had a reservation for tonight. Mike ordered in… So I ate at 28 Posti which is a really sweet contemporary Italian restaurant that focuses on no waste and innovative dishes.

There were three little amuse buches as “gifts of the chef” which were delightful and there is no way I can tell you what they were. Then I had two dishes.. baby artichokes that had been roasted and then they poured some kind of potato, black truffle, tarragon oil on… And I had the spaghetino (?) that had a fish and shellfish broth and was topped with a sprinkling of some kind of red pepper. I did have dessert but couldn’t finish (needed my “plus one” to share the meal)—some kind of porcini mushroom gelato with carob and tiny apple chunks alongside very very thin chocolate crackers and carob crackers. Then they brought a thank you gift from the chef—which I brought back to Mike. I think they were various fruits that had been either dried or gelled. They looked great.

I taxied back to the hotel and here I am.
I’m hoping that I’m in better shape tomorrow and will get out of the center of Milan into some neighborhoods. Mike will be in his room and hopefully feeling a little better. Keeping my fingers crossed that he feels well enough to have at least one day in Milan outside the hotel.

We will assess the situation regarding Geneva on Saturday, but right now it’s not looking good and we are likely to leave for the states from Milan, not Geneva… but that’s another story and will require finding flights. Haven’t even started that yet.

Best –
Fern