We started off the day with a lovely breakfast in the restaurant of the hotel.  It was a buffet style affair, but had a nice choice of pastries, fruit, yoghurt, meat, cheese and various drinks including coffee and fresh juices.  After picking up some items from our room and getting directions for the tram from the friendly receptionist, we headed down the road to buy tickets for the tram.  This was easy to do at a local convenience store and was very reasonable at 3 EUR each for a return ticket to the city centre (about a fifteen minute journey).

Upon arriving in the city centre, we were greeted with the magnificent Duomo in the central square.  We took a few pictures from outside and then headed in, passing through armed forces security guards checking bags!  As all we had in ours was some water and leftover pizza, we were allowed in, hehe.

As soon as we entered the interior of the Duomo, we were both blown away by the height of the ceiling and the grandness of it all.  It was quite dark inside and strangely warm, but the amount of sculpture work and stained glass on show was enough to keep us hooked.  We circled around the interior before heading out to pay for the lift up to the terraces of the Duomo.  Through more security checks and up the lift we went.

The terraces were not what we expected at all (possibly a small viewing area crammed with tourists taking awkward photos through railings).  We couldn’t have been more wrong!  You basically had access across most of the pathways around the roof of the Duomo along with being able to explore the many ancient tunnels that had been constructed as part of the terraces.  There were so many photo opportunities and the sun started to come out, which helped with the photos.  After we had enjoyed all of the views, we made our exit, after a slightly nervous descent down the main stairs from the high roof terrace (with Lois clinging to the back of my rucksack!).

When we got back down to ground level, we decided to go and see the baptistery and treasures in the underground vault of the Duomo, which meant entering the grand hall once more.  Lois decided to purchase a photo pass this time, which gave her a great opportunity to get some nice photographs.  We did find time to laugh at people ridiculously taking photos on their iPads!

After the Duomo, we pottered through the main shopping street, a beautiful indoor affair.  We’d been surprised that the shops hadn’t seemed that expensive, but had obviously been looking in the wrong places before (see the Louis Vuitton suitcase with its price tag in the photos)!  We then had a brief sit down near some other impressive sculptures and before treating ourselves to a proper Gelato ice-cream each.  Lois went for a chocolate mousse flavour and I got a bit greedy and had nutella, coffee and mango scoops, all of which were amazingly tasty.

Following the ice-creams, we headed to the famous castle of Milan, attempting to dodge the street sellers trying to trap tourists by tying decorated strings around their wrists and then demanding money – not something that does the city any favours.  We found that the castle was mostly public access, which was a really nice thing to have in the city.  We ended up having a nap in sun on the grass in the grounds of the castle and many other people were doing the same.  After awakening and watching some beautiful (and actually quite healthy looking) feral cats playing in the tall grasses, in what we think used to be the moat system around the castle, we headed towards an arch monument at the bottom of some lovely flowing green gardens.

We leisurely headed back through the park and the grounds of the castle and went in search of somewhere for tea.  A smart restaurant within sight of the castle and fountains took our fancy and we enjoyed a pasta dish each along with a lovely ricotta mousse and nougat desert – washed down with a surprisingly nice bottle of house white.

After finishing the meal, we headed back to the tram stop and caught the number 2 tram back to the hotel, where we spent the last few hours of the evening relaxing and chatting about all that we’d experienced in Milan (with Back to the Future II in Italian on in the background!).  I also treated myself and opened one of the bottles of cider that I’d bought in Honfleur, which was fantastic.

We’re off to the Stelvio Pass tomorrow, which we’re very excited about!

Enjoy the pictures!

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We’re getting quite good at this packing lark – showered, packed and checked out all in less than an hour this morning!  The MR2 seemed happy to be on the road again.  After Tom’s minor tweek yesterday (just to fix a slightly loose alternator belt) she was running beautifully.

As we left the lovely city of Geneva, we were soon over the border again and back in France.  I think today has been our favourite drive so far.  The motorway took us high up into the Alps between France and Italy, with jaw dropping views in all directions.  Mountains towered above us, as we swept past Alpine villages, lakes and clear, turquoise rivers.  Climbing up towards Mont Blanc gave us a taste of the Swiss passes that are to follow later on in our amazing holiday.  We also passed over many more viaducts – the motorways over here are quite a feat of engineering!

Eventually, we reached the mouth of the Mont Blanc tunnel, where we were ushered to one side by a group of French policemen.  I nervously answered their many questions (this holidays is seriously testing my language skills), but they sent us on our way with no problems – after a quick nosey around Tom’s car of course!  Next came what we thought was going to be the border.  I prepared the passports, but, no, this was the toll for the tunnel.  A quite astounding 40 EUR 90 was handed over!!!  Let’s just say we’re glad we’re not travelling home the same way!

Speaking of passports, they have not been checked by anyone at any of the borders we’ve crossed so far; we’ve now crossed from the UK to France, France to Switzerland, Switzerland to France and France to Italy!

After passing through the impressive (but rather monotonous) Mont Blanc tunnel, we emerged into more epic scenery and descended through more stunning mountains (and tunnels) onto the planes of northern Italy.  From then on it wasn’t quite as exciting and was quite a long (and very hot) slog to Milan, with a brief break for lunch, after which I nervously took over the driving. However, the suburban roads of Milan were pretty quiet and the SATNav took us straight to the door of our hotel.  No covered parking for the MR2 here, but we found a shady spot in the hotel car park for her to cool down after her mountainous journey.

The hotel seems to be quite a way from the centre, but it’s in a quiet part of town and is nice and quirky, so it suits us!  It’s almost more like little apartments off a central courtyard, with their doors off long, shared blaconies.

We were very glad of the air conditioning when we arrived, and spent a good couple of hours just cooling off!  We then headed out to search for some dinner. but all the local restaurants seemed to be closed for the holiday season!  We did find a bar that served us a nice cold Morretti beer each 🙂  Following the advice of the hotel, we then went back to a pizzeria that we had passed and purchased some wood-fired-oven-baked pizzas, which we took back and ate on the balcony outside our room – yum yum!

Tomororw we’re off to explore Milan’s city centre, possibly with our waterproofs in tow – but who cares?  We’re in Italy!

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An early start this morning, as we had to make it across town to CERN for our tour of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) complex.  The route we took allowed us to experience the different road network layout that Switzerland has (at times rather confusing with its lack of markings!), but CERN itself was easy to find and well signposted (there is even a tram to get there).  As we had arrived really early, we hunted out some breakfast (definitely not included with this hotel!).  This materialised in the form of some croissant, pain au chocolat and fresh juice from a little shop in a petrol station across the road; the pastries were surprisingly excellent!

Back at the reception at CERN, we were given our official guided tour lanyards and passes and asked to wait in reception until the tour started.  It began with an amusing, but informative, video about CERN’s 50th anniversary (Lois couldn’t believe quite how long it had been going).  We were then introduced to our guide, a very smiley and enthusiastic Spanish scientist.

He took us straight across to one of the other buildings on the site, to show us an example of one of the pipes that runs through the actual collider.  We were then taken to the ATLAS control room, where the ATLAS detector and all of its test results can be analysed (Tom had to work hard to resist pushing the HUGE red button – see photo below!).  After showing us through a presentation of various learning clips relating to CERN experiments, we were taken upstairs, past a life-size diagram of the collider, to watch a 3D film explaining the construction and production of the ATLAS detector (see Tom in full Top Gun regalia below!).  The video was wicked!  Finally, we were taken back downstairs, where the guide described the Higgs Bosun effect (still completely over Lois’s head) and eagerly asked for any more questions!   Before we left, we were given time to explore the excellent exhibitions.

Facts from the day that blew our minds:

• The particles travel round the 27 km collider 11,000 times a second (that’s 99.999% of the speed of light!)
• The ATLAS detector weighs the same as The Eiffel Tower!
• Even the most eminent physicists in the world still don’t understand what gravity is and how it works!
• If the particle detector in ATLAS was a camera, it would be 100 mega pixels and be able to take 600 million pictures per second!
• If your head was the nucleus of an atom, the protons and neutrons would be 50km away!
• It takes around 120 tons of helium to cool down the collider ready for use AND, once cooled, the 27 km of steel shrinks by 80m!

Once the tour had finished, we bagged some goodies from the CERN gift shop and headed back to the hotel (after some minor tinkering with the car).  After a brief rest, we then took the tram back into town and booked ourselves onto a boat tour of the lake of Geneva.  Whilst we waited for the trip to start (in a lovely small green area), I nipped to get some water to make sure we were topped up with fluids.  We also munched on some food that we’d bought from an Aldi close by our hotel.  Shortly after finishing lunch, Lois spotted the boat pulling into the harbour and so we rushed off to get to the front of the queue.  However, the boat captain kindly asked us to wait on the port for 10 minutes while they cleaned up and had a rest (I think Lois was rather excited about the boat trip, bless her! :)).

We boarded the boat once it was ready and then set sail for an amazing tour of the lake, taking in many sights including Monte Blanc, various luxury homes and castles (Lois picked out some potential properties…), and of course, the 140m high water fountain!  Stat time again!

• 1370hp water pump pushing 500 litres of water every second
• 140m high
• 8 tonnes of water in the fountain jet at any one time

The tour took just over an hour and cost 16 CHF, which based on everything else in Switzerland, was very reasonable!  We would thoroughly recommend the Swiss Boat tour.

We then had a final walk around the lovely clear waters of lake Geneva and then jumped back onto the tram back to our hotel, where we spent the night chilling out and catching up with the world.

Milan next!  Pizza, pasta and ice-cream!

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