Our honeymoon trip to Italy Arriving in Milan

On the day of our departure we went to the airport late as our BA flight was at 10PM. We arrived in London Heathrow at 5AM and our next flight wasn’t before 11AM. I remember the toilets, as some people left a tip there, but I didn’t have any pounds on me.

Heathrow is a huge airport, and we spent a lot of time passing controls. We then walked to the European flight zone. They didn’t announce gates before 1 hour prior to the flights, and so we had to wait several hours in the central zone. The stores were beautiful, but very expensive, especially with rate change.

Our flight was full of Italian kids returning from vacation in England. The landing was strange as if we were “falling” 3 times. This was because we had to land in Malpenza airport of Milan, and it was right after we crossed the Alps. Italian passengers are very expressive especially kids. So, every time we went down they shouted and laughed.

We could get our luggage fast and were ready to go. In the waiting area I’ve spotted Christina who was holding a paper with my name on it. We had our transfer included. The welcome was really warm and she helped us with one of the suitcases to the minibus. She then had to return as another couple should be arriving. Finally their flight was delayed and we just took off to our hotel. There were a lot of pine trees and from the freeway it didn’t look much different from Montreal, with all plants and companies. The only difference were the cars and trucks, and of course the drivers. They took much more risk including our minibus driver. The majority of cars we saw were luxurious Mercedes, VW or Audi. We could see Milan area was a rich region. During the drive I had a chat with Christina and she explained how to take the tram right in front of our hotel and how to buy the tickets at the hotel to get downtown Milan. We arrived to our hotel at 3PM. On arrival, the hotel looked really ugly from the outside. It looked like a fortification during war times. It is true that Milan was extensively bombarded during the war and the reconstructed buildings were all gray and with small windows, most of which were closed with metal gray shutters.