Tuscany to Zurich
Our amazing trip continued Sunday with an early wake up from Fabio who took us through the narrow streets of San Gimignano to the garage where our car was parked just outside the city. Fabio estimated in his broken English that it would be a four hour drive to the Stationze Centrale in Milano. We put the train station in the GPS as our destination and it said we had about 330 kilometers to go, which I figured we could cover in less time than Fabio predicted. The first third of the drive was on the twisty A1 highway toward Firenze and to Bologna that reminded me of driving through the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina but without all the Cracker Barrel restaurants. The rainy and foggy conditions made for some tense driving, but once we got through Bologna and turned toward Modena, the terrain leveled out and the last two thirds of the drive toward Milano was uneventful and put us on course to get to the train station at around 11:30 with our goal of catching the train that left for Zurich at 13:10. After filling the car with gas and and grabbing some snacks, we got into the city of Milano. As that process continued, we never saw ANY signs that indicated we were heading toward the train station. That continued right up until we got to our destination per the GPS. It had us at what looked like a big government building where we drove around and re-entered the destination into the GPS and then Ben spotted a small sign that said Treni, and sure enough that was the train station. Hey Luiggi, how about some signage?? We still had no idea where to drop off the car, and it was getting to be around noon and our 13:10 departure was in doubt. I pulled over near a square close to the station, and dug into our trip material, found the phone number of the National/Maggiore car rental office in Milano, and with me speaking English and the guy on the phone speaking Italian, I managed to get the street address, which happened to be two quick right turns around the block, in a tiny garage with a tiny sign over its tiny entrance. We got the car returned, but then had to cross the street and go into the station to return the GPS (Mamma Mia!) and still get our train tickets. Once inside the station, there was no obvious place for rental car counters, but we were near some ticket desks and machines, so Annie handled that transaction while I tracked down the Maggiore office by showing people the Maggiore pouch that contained the GPS. I finally found the office where the clerk looked over the paper work and he said, "here's where we have a problem." Seems we were about an hour over our 72-hour rental period and the price jumps by abount 75 euro for a fragmented day. I gave the guy my best pleading "prego" which is Italian for just about everything, and mentioned something about "mi famiglia" and them having itty-bitty signs and he gave me a break and didn't charge any extra. I scrambled to find Annie and the kids by around 12:35. The tickets were amazingly cheap, just 178 euro for the whole family to get to Zurich, and after finding the right platform, we got on the train to say arrivederci to Italy. We had heard from some people who spent a lot of time traveling around Europe that the trip from Milan to Zurich was their favorite and we now know why. As you cross from Italy into Switzerland, each time you emerge from a tunnel, it's an "oh wow" moment with stunning landscapes of snow-covered mountains and villages nestled into the sides of them.
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