April 7, 2025

Milano, Italia > Torino, Italia

Buongiorno amici miei, it is good to be back home. Home being where the heart is, and in our case that is Italy. A really nice comfortable bed. A tea kettle for making hot water for tea. Things in languages we understand. It is just comfortable feeling.

The time change doesn’t work to our advantage when going west to east. It probably should be in this particular case it is only one hour anyway. It wasn’t until 05:45 that my sleep ended. This allowed me to draw a nice warm bath in the beautifully long, nearly two-meter-long bathtub, and have a good long soak.

By 07:00 I was shaved and dressed and heading to breakfast. Still not at all hungry but having a strong desire for a cappuccino and brioche. Normally I would go downstairs and out to the Was Coffee Lab next to the train ticket kiosks and entrance to the train platforms which is just outside the front door of the Sheraton. However, since the hotel has included breakfast at no charge, I decided to save the €3 and see what Il Canneto had to offer.

Turns out Il Canneto offered a very nice breakfast. Unfortunately, I was still too full from all the eating yesterday that I couldn’t take full advantage of it. I did order a cappuccino from the manager of the restaurant. They have coffee machines, but I wanted a real one. He understood me!

While they were off making my cappuccino, I went to the buffet bar and snagged a croissant, some apricot jam, some yogurt with frutta di bosco, and a little butter. Shortly after I was back in my seat, they brought me a very nice cappuccino. It was a very enjoyable breakfast.

Just before it has gone 08:00 I snagged another yogurt with frutta di bosco for Mary, and then headed back to the room. Mary got up when I returned, got dressed and packed her things up. I was working on changing our reservations for Canada to the new dates in August and on making sure all of our prescriptions were being refilled.

This time we decided to try something new. Rather than take the Malpensa Express into Milano and then switch to a high-speed train for Torino, which if the timing is really good you can get from the airport to Torino in just over two hours, we thought we would try the bus from Malpensa directly to Torino.

Now it isn’t a cost thing, although it is €48 for the two of us for the bus, and €13 for the Malpensa Express and then €76 for the Fercciarossa Business Class to Torino Porta Nova. So, €89 vs €48, it is nearly half as much for the train. However, on the train we can have a table between us and play cards, at least on the Fercciarossa, which is something not available on the bus.

Now this is the first time. There were two requirements however. First, it must be a direct bus, stops ok but no changes. Second, it must leave from Terminal 1. The cost of getting to Terminal 2 just increases the cost. There are lots of buses offering transfer to, or from as a matter of fact, Torino from Malpensa. There were two which I have a little experience with, Flibco and Flex.

Flex bus’ schedule didn’t show one around 10:00 but Flibco did. Somehow, I got on to the Omio website to purchase tickets.  Probably because I went through Rome2Rio. I thought I was ordering tickets from Flibco but I was actually ordering from Autostradale. Not that it mattered, the price was €24.

We boarded the bus about 09:35. The bus left at 10:00 and arrived at Autostazione Corso Bolzano. While I wasn’t completely sure where that was in Torino, I did know it was in Torino and Serra confirmed there would be taxis there to take us to her house. It turns out that the Autostazione is an open-air bus terminal right next to the Porta Susa train station in Torino.

We got off the bus, walked across the street to the train station and accompanying taxi stand, and got into a taxi and headed to Serra’s. We had a nice lady taxi driver. All we good until she missed the turn down Via Po. At that point I wondered if she understood my Italian when I gave her Serra’s address. She went though the Royal Gardens, which was nice because all the trees are in bloom, and then turned on Corso San Maurizio which runs parallel to Via Po (more or less), but at least in the right direction for Serra’s.

After a few blocks she realized that Via Giulia de Barolo was a one-way street and she had put herself on the wrong end of the street to get to number 5. She apologized and turned off her meter saying she was sorry that she would have to go around the block to get us to number 5. The ride cost us €11 which is just one euro more than going from Porta Nova to Serra’s. So not a problem.

We got out of the taxi, paid her and went right up to Serra’s. We were greeted by one very happy little Luisa and her sister Amadea who had no idea what was happening. Serra and Pietro hung a round for a while then took off for Malpensa and Morocco.

We played with Luisa and Amadea. Monica was around cleaning and organizing things. Gloria helped with the girls and then left us at 17:00 and the night nurse, Tiziana, arrived at 18:00. When Tiziana arrived I took off to do our laundry which Mary, more than me, as desperate for. Two hours later I returned with the laundry and the girls were in bed, including Mary.

A few minutes of unpacking the laundry and getting ready for bed then I joined them.

Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico e Maria