One Day in Milan, Italy This Happened…
“That was easy enough,” I said to my sister, Angela, as we collected our luggage tickets from the Milan airport luggage storage room.
“Yup, we just have to be back here by eight,” she replied and then gave a care-free smile. “Or we’re luggage-less for Greece.”
Due to EasyJet’s affordable but erratic flight schedule, the cheapest way for us to get to Greece from Spain, where we had just been for a week, was to fly through Milan with a landing time of noon and a departing time of 6:00am the next morning. We took this as a great excuse to see Milan during our travels and booked the flight.
“Alright,” I said and clapped my hands together. “Which way to the train?”
A short while later, we found the airport’s metro station and stopped in confusion immediately after entering its vicinity.
“Does it seem a bit too quiet down here?” I asked uncertainly.
The usual sounds and hustle and bustle of a European train station were missing and no one appeared to be working at the ticket counter either.
After piecing together some Italian and broken English we figured out a worker’s strike was going on in Italy. This was not uncommon for Italy, but was definitely bad timing for us.
We were on more of a deadline for getting into the city than usual due to having booked a tour that would allow us to see Da Vinci’s The Last Supper as it was the last stop in the tour. We had to be at the McDonald’s by the Duomo, Milan’s grand cathedral, by 2pm. (And yes, the irony of meeting at a McDonald’s for a city tour of Milan was not lost on us.)
“Ok,” Angela said calmly, staying level headed. “There has to be some way to get into the city.”
I bit my lip. “If it’s all public transportation that’s on strike, that’s not good. A taxi from here is going to be expensive.”
Angela cringed in agreement and then got a determined look on her face. “A taxi is not an option. We can find another way!”
I grinned at her perseverance and hoped she was right. We scattered to opposite ends of the train terminal to search for signs of a bus.
I squinted at some signs in Italian and tried to decipher if they meant a bus was coming anytime soon. I sighed. I was having no luck. I glanced around and…Angela was gone. Great. We’re sans cell phones so hopefully she turns up soon. I glanced at my watch again. I was starting to think it was going to take a bit of a miracle for us to get to this tour on time.
So long Last Supper…
I’m still mourning the fact that I came so close to seeing the painting when Angela’s head suddenly popped around from a hallway ahead of me.
“Come on! Hurry!” She called and gestured for me to join her.
We walked quickly down the hallway and lo and behold – a bus!
“Yay! Good job Ang,” I said excitedly.
A line was already forming next to the bus and we got in it after we confirmed with a few of the Italians in line that this was in fact going to Milan’s city center. Why this was seemingly the only public transportation going on right now, I had no idea, but didn’t question it.
After a few minutes of waiting in line, the bus driver showed up and collected 15 Euro from everyone in line. Kind of expensive for an hour bus ride from the airport, but way cheaper than a taxi so we shrugged and handed over the cash.
“Nice, we’re definitely going to make it on time!” I said, thinking we were going to get on the bus right away. There seemed to be enough people in line to fill up the bus so I figured we’d be no the road in no time.
5 minutes passed…10 minutes…20 minutes….
“What is going on?” Angela whispered.
The bus driver had not been seen for at least 10 minutes and we were all still waiting in line, most appearing to be much more patient than Angela and me. Maybe they all lived here and could see The Last Supper whenever they wanted. Although, to be fair, the locals were probably having trouble getting in right now, too. It was shortly after The Da Vinci Code was published and tickets to view the painting were selling out months in advance. Since we hadn’t figured out the Milan layover until a few weeks beforehand we thought we were out of luck. That was until Rick Steves and my mom saved the day.
I had sadly mentioned to my mom during a phone conversation that The Last Supper was already sold out for the day we would be in Milan.
“Wait! Let me get my Rick Steves book,” Mom said urgently.
I rolled my eyes. My mom was obsessed with Rick Steves guidebooks. “Mom, Rick Steves is not going to have some magic way of getting them to let us in,” I started to inform her, but she had already set the phone down and didn’t hear me.
“Ok, I have it,” she said a minute later and I could hear her murmuring city names as she flipped through the book.
“Here we go!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Milan.” She paused for a minute.
I wait, doubtful and hopeful.
“Oh, this is perfect!” she said and went onto explain a day tour highlighted in the book that was affordable and included a viewing of The Last Supper.
I signed Angela and myself up a few minutes later and said a thank you out loud to Rick Steves.
And now here we are about to miss the tour. Maybe I’m just not meant to see The Last Supper. Or for that matter, Milan, at this point. Just as I felt on the verge of despair, the bus driver returned and ushered all of us onto the bus and we were off.
“I think we’ll make it,” I said optimistically to Angela as we boarded. She nodded back happily as we took our seats. We both watched out the window as Italian suburbs came into view and we got closer to our destination.
Then we were in Milan. With 15 minutes to spare. From what we could tell on our map we were examining during the bus ride, the bus would be dropping us off right next to the Duomo, which was right next to the McDonald’s meeting place. Feeling relieved to make it, Angela and I tumbled off the bus and looked around.
“Um…which way?” Angela asked uncertainly.
We were in the middle of a huge intersection. In Italy, intersections are not like they are in America where it’s an easy cross section of four perpendicular lanes. No, in Italy an intersection consisted of a massive lopsided circle with ten lanes jutting out from it in every which way and they are not clearly marked.
“I figured we’d be able to see the Duomo from here,” I frowned. I opened our map and we studied it for a minute and decided to go right.
After a couple minutes the Duomo came into view, but it was to the side of us, not ahead of us.
We stopped in a café, desperate.
“Which way to the Duomo?” we asked, hoping “Duomo” would be enough for them to understand what we were asking.
The two workers behind the counter looked at us blankly. Man, I wish they had taught Italian in school.
We ran back out and turned left toward – we hoped – the cathedral.
“Look!” I shouted and pointed across the street. “A metro stop!”
“It’s worth a try,” Angela replied.
We ran down the stairs to the underground metro and immediately confirmed that the metro was on strike, too. With a groan, we ran back up into the daylight.
Five minutes to departure. We started running. This looked very out of place in leisurely “Dolce Vita” Italy. We were at the point that we didn’t care. We still didn’t seem to be getting any closer and time was running out. Seriously, how did you get to this place?
We saw a server outside a café ahead of us clearing dishes and stopped to ask for directions again. He didn’t speak much English either, but caught onto the word Duomo and began gesturing and talking rapidly in animated Italian. We focused intently and tried to follow his gestures since the Italian was lost on us.
“So, he’s telling us to go back the way we came and circle around to the right,” Angela translated slowly.
“I think so,” I replied just as slowly.
Backtracking didn’t sound appealing to either of us, but we were running out of time and didn’t have any other options.
We followed his directions and…
Arrived at the Duomo, Milan’s gorgeous cathedral! We looked around frantically and spotted the McDonald’s and a bus parked in front of it.
We ran over to the door of the bus. A lady was waiting outside of it. She peered at us and said our names in a questioning and expectant tone since we were obviously the last ones to arrive.
“Yup, that’s us,” I said happily. The Last Supper, here we come.
Thanks for reading Milan Strike: Why it’s Good to Have a Backup Plan into the City