Dungroamin 2019
The holiday that smells but has no taste
Saturday 8th June
Having done a bit of background work the previous day, we were quickly at the tram stop, tickets in hand, ready to board the tram for Manzoni–Scala where the opera house is located and where we intended to visit the tourist information office. However after looking eveywhere we could not find one, but managed to get some directions from some locals, who struggled with English – was this a backwoods country?
We walked to Plaza del Douma where we were led to believe there was one, but we could not find one there either. But we did find a stop for the Hop–on–hop–off bus where we were able to get a map and tickets.
The Hop–on–hop–off buses in Milan, like many cities, have four set routes, each named with a colour. We went round the red route back to Plazza del Doumo from where we walked towards the Castle (Castello Sforzesco).
On the tram, Sally tells one of the locals where to get off.
On our walk to the Plaza del Douma, we passed through this impressive arcade.
One of the plentiful trams running in the city.
Come on Jerry, which way next?
On our route to the castle, we stopped off in a street coffee shop for a drink. We did not realise until we went inside to the loo, that the place was a Starbucks and in fact was one of only four Starbucks world–wide which ground coffee on site using some quite impessive machinery. When we walked through the door it was a bit of a wow moment, as had we never seen anything quite like it. (Little did we know that this sight would be one of the most impressive that we would see in a rather disappointing European city).
Post–coffee, we proceded to the Castello bus stop where we took the yellow route down to the Navigli area which is where the town waterways are. Whilst our sojourns often feature a river trip, in this case they were fully booked and so we remained land lubbers – why did they not have more boats? How do they sell all those Cornettos?
The girls peruse the menu at what we later discovered was Starbucks.
The impressive inside to Starbucks.
One of the canals with a distinct shortage of boats.
We did manage to find an ice cream however, following which we got back on the Yellow bus route to Castello. We walked back down La Dante to No. 15 where we stopped and ordered some, what appeared to be, very expensive drinks. However, we had not realised that it was happy hour and we also got macarena nuts, olives, crisps and peanuts, followed by some wraps and pieces of pizza. The bill was about €90 for 10 of us, so it ended up not bad value.
After what amounted to a meal, we walked back to Castello, from where we took the blue route back to Republica and thence the hotel. In the evening we, stayed in the hotel, where we just needed a snack after our earlier feasting.
Sitting outside at No 15 La Dante for what we thought were going to be expensive drinks.
The wraps and pieces of pizza turn up.