To Milano and Venice

Something obviously happened with the writing of the first post about Milan. We set off from Zurich on Sunday in overcast weather and headed towards Milan. Weather fined up as we headed up the specatular Gotthard Pass but then turned sour as we came out of the tunnel. Now in the Italian sector of Switzerland it seemed much poorer. We arrived in Milan and took a taxi to the hotel which was a couple of Ks out of the centre. After a boite to eat and settle in we too matters in hand and tried the subway into the city to the Duomo - the Cathedral - a magnificient cavernous building. The Square outside was teeming with people and pigeons, and scammers. Rosslyn, before she realised it, had some corn placed in her hand and then found she was holding a stack of pigeons for me to photograph, and some scammer to extract somne money. Then it was acorss to the Vittoria Buiolding, home of Prada, Maccas, a quick visit to La Scala, dinner in the Vittoria, then the train home. Next mroning was a walk along the Via La Monza near the hotel and then into the station to head for Venice. This trip was uneventful and the scenery of vineyards, facotiries, crops, past the home of VW in Italy and by the time we reached Venice uit was rainoing. Crossing the viaduct into Venice we alighted from the train and were confronted by scammers selling umberllas and other stuiff. We eventually negotiated the canal bus to our stop along the Grand Canal and then in the rain lugged our cases up the road and into what seemed like an alley where our hotel, the Giorgione, is. IOt is a 500 year old building renovated ion the 1800's to a hotel. It is quite quaint but comfoprtable - a 4 * place. I've run out of time for today having had great frustration with the I/net connection. I'll copmplete the writing bit about today's doings when we hit Vienna tomorrow. But you have the photos to drool over.