Friday 7th June

Having decided to go to Milan, we then had much discussion over how to get there. In the end one party (the Parsons and the Evans) went from Gatwick and the other party (the Clarkes, Measures ans Smiths) decided they fancied a trip to Manchester.

The flight from Gatwick was at a decent time of day so upon arrival at Malpensa Airpot, we had plenty of time to work out how to get to the hotel. Our initial plan was to take the train, but for some reason, we then bought return tickets for the bus (it's great when a plan comes together!). We queued up to wait for the bus and could not get on the first one and had to wait for the second, during which time we wondered whether it was a mistake not to take the train.

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Our hotel.

Once on the bus we were transfered to the centre of Milan where we could not immediately see the underground station. But after walking around aimlessly for a while, we eventually spotted the big red “M” indicating the metro.

The ticket machine quickly furnished us with tickets and we boarded the train for one stop to Republica, which we knew was the nearest station to our hotel. However, having exited the station, it was not obvious in which direction to walk. But Google maps came to our assistance and we were quickly at our hotel – the Ibis Milano Centro – although it wasn't very ”centro”.

We spent the afternoon checking out the locality discovering that there were not any good bars nearby, but we did find out where to get the tram and train tickets for the next day – which was from a local shop.

We were very tired after our early start, but the Manchester group had not yet arrived and we just about stayed awake long enough to welcome them when they did arrive at the hotel.