April 25, 2025

Torino, Italia > Malpensa, Milano, Italia

Up way too early this morning. I cooked up the remaking salami and eggs for breakfast. I tried the DeLonghi coffee maker, but it wasn’t worth the effort. Today is Festa della Liberazione, literally Liberation Day. It is a national holiday here in Italy and celebrates the victory of the Italian resistance movement against Nazi Germany, the Italian Spical Republic and the fascists state. Not to be confused with Festa della Repubblica which takes place June 2.

Today we will take the bus from Torino to Malpensa and spend the night in the Sheraton at the airport in preparation for an early morning departure tomorrow. We got up and dressed and had breakfast all before the 10:00 time to vacate. We were downstairs, and the taxi was called for by 10:00.

The app, and maybe if you just call, charges if you have more than 2 pieces of luggage. Which, honestly, you shouldn’t have. However, with the rug from Morocco, and clothing for two seasons, we have six. Three each. They aren’t all that big. In fact, it is leading me to think we should have had two big suitcases not one. We could have possibile eliminated one or two of the smaller bags. However, once on the road having just carryon sides bags does make things easier.

We were at the Autostazione Corso Bolzano, next to the Porta Susa Torino train station, by 10:15. It was a €15 taxi ride, €1.5 for booking online, €13.5 for the taxi of which €3.5 was possibly the extra luggage. The bus tickets were €44 which is a lot less than the train, even with the online booking fee through Omio, which will be avoided next time by booking directly with Autostradale, the total was $59.54.

The bus is the way to go between Torino and Malpensa. It takes just under two hours. Drops you off at the departures level, and if heading the other way, picks you up at arrivals. Now, which bus service should you use? There is Flibco.com, FlixBus and Autostazione.

First, are you looking at times or costs? Times, well they are all very frequent. Cost? Well, they aren’t all the same. Flibco .com wants to charge you for each additional bag you have over 2. The cost is about the same €22.  The cost each additional bag is €22. That makes no sense. The FlixBus price depends on when you go. Oops, they also want extra fees for extra bags.

Now I wasn’t sure if Autostazione would charge for an additional bag or not. There was no data on extra bags as there were with the other two. When we arrive at the bus station I went into the ticket office. I had mistakenly booked for Terminal 2, and we need to be at Terminal 1. The ticket lady was very nice and explained it was the same bus. It stopped at Terminal 1 before going on to Terminal 2, and she said just get off. I didn’t mention our bags but it should have been obvious that we had more than 2. She didn’t say anything, so neither did I.

When the driver scanned our tickets, I told him we were going to Terminal 1. She looked at me like I was an idiot for making the mistake, but said ok but your bags in the forward compartment. He didn’t offer to help, you load your own bags. So, I did. No extra charges.

Two hours later we were at Malpensa. By 13:15 we were checked into our room at the Sheraton. We were hungry so we went back to the airport and looked around the food court at the airport for some place to eat. There are two on the departures side, before security. Gran Café’, McDonalds, and Rossopomodoro. Gran Café’ has panini but it is basically a café/bar. Rossopomodoro has fairly good fast Italian dishes and a concentration on pizza. We chose the old favorite McD’s. Quick fast, cheap and easy.

After lunch we headed back to the room and into the nice comfortable bed. We both napped for about 2 hours. Then was a little time spend looking at repacking a few things at the last minute to make my carryon lighter and move the few things that won’t go through security to a checked in bag.

We went out to Rossopomodoro for dinner. Pizza Margarita and a salad. It wasn’t bad. After dinner we went back to the room. This hotel has really nice bathtubs so IO took advantage of that. Mary sat in the nice soft bed and read. IT wasn’t too long before it was time to go to sleep.

Buonanotte e Ciao, Enrico e Maria