Journey Through France, Part 4: To Milan

Hey all,

Final couple of days in France and then into Italy went by in a bit of a blur of travel – we got up early from the roadside motel outside Foix, headed back towards Blois via Auch, which was a beautiful town where we had lunch by the river and where I was scarred me for life and K much amused (see “Karma,” below).  Was a very long drive back to Blois and quite stressful in large part because the French don't seem to bother much with reflectors on their roads so you are kind of more or less just hoping you are still on them at times.

The hotel we stayed at this time in Blois, when we finally got there, was absolutely charming – exactly what you want out of a 1 star dump – the room easily had more character than any other place we had stayed in, the spiral staircase so tight and steep that it was difficult to get up with the packs, and a window that opened out onto a roof of unknown material and quality which looked out over the town.  Was desperate to climb on to it and smoke a cigar but K had sensible things to say about that regarding the high probability of becoming dead and/or crippled, not to mention being left with a huge bill.  Anyway, we both loved it, and it would have made a nice base to go to some of the earlier places if we had discovered it sooner, as opposed to driving like lunatics all day in one direction, then realising we missed what we wanted to see, driving like lunatics all the way back again, and then back again, the following day.  Next time...

Back to Chartres the following morning, returned the car, breathed sigh of relief when the inspector did not notice the broken hubcab from one of the instances of me forgetting about the right hand side of the car – breathed a sigh of a different kind when the bill came through for all the excess ks we had done due to habit of getting lost, then jumped on a bus in the snow back to the train station and back to Paris.  Found our hotel and the wandered down through Bastille in the evening, went to Notre Dame and then found a restaurant where K had a meal which she describes as the best of her entire trip.

Got up early the next morning, train to the airport, flight to Milan, train from airport to Milan itself, found our hotel (which we initially thought was the wrong place as it seemed very glamorous and upmarket but turned out to be the right place which made us both very happy), then headed off for a wander around Milan – recharged magic internet stick now that I was back in Italy, which came with a free bag of t-shirts which was kind of cool – sat in a lovely little obscure church for a while, went to Duomo (Gothic cathedral - not a dome) there which even by the standards of Italian churches is freakishly enormous – almost too big, too impressive – and also wandered around the central commercial district for a while where we saw the work of the crazy artist I had met in Florence in a shop window (I recognised it as his, Model Agent later confirmed that I was right).

Breathless yet?  We were.

Back to hotel via crowded hectic supermarket where I officially started to twitch out completely and have vague memories of K saying (slowly, clearly, in soothing tones), “Just stand there dear. Take a deep breath.  I'll go and find the muesli and come and get you.”

Photos.  1.  The room in the cute hotel in Blois.  2.  The view out the window.  Was not allowed to climb on to roof :( 3.  The stairwell.  4.  If you look closely you can see a hunchback.  5.  Crazy artist's work in Milan – I took a photo of this in his studio in Florence.  6.  More of the same.  7.  Creepy statue of a flayed alive saint in Milan Duomo.  8.  Inside the cathedral at Milan.

Cheers, B