Italy bound

 After months of barely leaving the house, I decided to make a dash for it and go to Italy. My mate Thibault invited me out for a week of travel, as his wife had a lot less holiday entitlement than he had. So we hatched the plan that he would go out to Italy with his wife on Wednesday night, spend a long weekend together and then on Sunday drop Clarissa off at Milan airport and pick me up from there for a week travelling through Tuscany and Umbria, flying back from Rome. 

As flights on the Sunday either were ridiculously early in the morning or late in the day, I opted to fly out late afternoon on Saturday and spend a night at the airport hotel. 

Flights were from Gatwick so I found a way of going entirely on overground trains, about which I felt more comfortable than the Underground. As my trains were almost too perfectly aligned, I ended up being ridiculously early for checking in. Unfortunately Gatwick is not the most photogenic airport. Here was my best shot at an arty looking photo, just outside the terminal. I gave up on photos and just read my book to kill a little time.

My Easy Jet plane awaited. Well unfortunately it didn't. Was about 20 minutes late, but I was in no hurry.

I decided to hang the expense and stay in the Sheraton at Milan airport. Rather in the manner of airport hotels, this was high end functional, but functionally bland. It would not have taken much of a flourish to turn this into an attractive place to stay, but evidently they did not think it worth any flourish at all.

Large hotel with cavernous atrium, no doubt to cope with a rather larger influx of visitors than it is handling at the moment. As you can see, enormous long corridor decorated in the most exuberant shades of muddy brown.

Rooms were comfortable and spacious - king size bed to myself. But just very uninspired.

As I hadn't eaten since breakfast I headed into the hotel restaurant, where I had my temperature taken before being allowed to sit. Actually this was a quite tasteful spot. 

More tasteful than the food. One of the many symptoms of covid is a loss of the sense of taste. Genuinely the thought occurred to me at dinner that such tasty LOOKING food should taste so much more than it did. Was it me? The vibrantly green pea soup looked delicious, but tasted of very little.

The pasta was no better

The chocolate mousse gave me some hope that it was the insipidness of the food rather than my taste buds that was at fault.

I asked for a beer and was offered Heineken. I did ask if there was anything else and only then was I offered a local craft beer option. This was Reb Hell. Get it? Local lager. Well, better than Heineken.

The lounge  was not exactly atmospheric. If I had sat there I would have been totally alone, for miles around. No social distancing issues here. Which does bring me to my one airport safety bugbear. Lots of signs telling us to socially distance. Have to wear masks (and not just any mask, but the disposable clinical masks). BUT, when it comes to the little buses taking you from plane to terminal, any social distancing? Not a chance. You are herded in like any metro in rush hour, and then held until they are packed. Of course they could lay on extra buses, but no. Passenger safety really not as big a priority as airports would like to claim. 

After a good night's sleep I arranged to meet Thibault and Clarissa for the world's most bizarre game of wife swap. Swap wife at airport for short old bloke. No wonder Thibault doesn't look happy. End of holiday for Clarissa; beginning for me. 😊