December 31, 2025 - January 1, 2026

Sonoma, CA – SFO – Munich, DE – Milan, Italy

The last day of 2025 and the beginning of the 2026 travel year. The morning starts out with the goal of spending the night in Torino. We have a two-bedroom apartment in Piazza Maria Teressa in Torino for the next week. The plan is to meet up with Harry V in Munich and then fly together to Milano, where we will meet up with Ali. We have arranged a car to take us from Malpensa to the apartment in Torino.

The day begins with a 09:30 pick up in Sonoma by Blacklane for the ride to SFO. We are on United flight 194 which leaves at 13:30 for Munich. It wasn’t without some effort that we managed to be ready at 09:30. There was no fifteen minutes early or your late, at least not in this case. We were actually a few minutes late opening the gate for the driver.

This morning, I am a little more with it than I have been over the past few days. I managed to direct the driver to take 116 rather than 121, thus by passing the bridge construction and any possible delays there. Traffic was light and we easily made the transition from 116 to the Lakeville Highway and out to 37 and off to 101. Watching the screen displaying the route I noticed that the route has us taking the Richmond Bridge over 80, across the Bay bridge to 101 and SFO.

This didn’t make much sense. I mentioned this to the driver, he said it was due to the construction on 19th Avenue. Honestly, that did make some sense. I suggested that we take 101 to Lombard Street, the Van Ness back to 101, rather than go over to the east bay. The driver said that should work as well. So that is what we did.

We got to SFO about 11:00. He dropped us off at Door 5 of the international terminal. We manhandled our three large and two small suitcases into the terminal. The check-in gate was right inside where we entered, so we dropped four of the bags; three large and one small. The other small was my carryon with all our medications.

Security was a breeze. American Express is covering Clear as part of the credit card program, so we went though Clear Plus (Clear plus TSA Pre-check). Loaded the bags on to the screening belt and we were though. No issues, no problems. He then headed to the United Business Class lounge and settled into wait for our flight.

The international terminal has recently been redone at SFO, and they did a nice job. The United Lounge is very nice, light and clean. Lots of people but not overly crowded. They had a reasonable selection of food available. Since it was lunch time, we thought it would be best to partake in the food here. Undoubtedly, we will get on the airplane and they first thing they are going to want to do is serve us dinner, but that will still be a couple hours away.

We headed down to the gate, G15, a little after it has gone 12:30. Boarding was set to begin at 12:55. While I was standing in line, with my cane, a coughing still a little, but I was wearing a mask, Mary signaled the guy with the wheelchair that it would be best if I sat down. So, for the second time I am finding myself in a wheelchair at the airport. Not really feeling it is necessary, but I admit it was very nice to sit down rather than to stand in line and wait. We are in business class, so we will board in the first group anyway, and there will be no competition for the overhead bin for the small roll on with our medications.

Boarding begins just after it has gone 13:00. It all went well. The seating in business class is nice, but the configuration of the particular seats we are assigned isn’t the best. We are seated in the center next to each other but such that we are facing away from each other. We like it better when we are seated side by side. Just the luck of the draw.

We pull away from the gate on time. We start down the taxiway and stop. Apparently there is some mechanical issue which needs to be resolved. We sit and wait. Two hours later they are taking us back to the gate to change planes. Our hour and thirty-minute layover and plane change in Munich is now gone. Meeting Harry V in Munich is now in question, as is meeting Ali in Milan. And Dario meeting us in Milan and taking us to Torino is now in question.

Basically, there are lots of questions and absolutely no answers. There is really nothing we can do. I left Dario know we are stuck in San Francisco. Text V of our situation. We deplane and head to our new gate G1. It is a little before 17:00 when we begin boarding the new plane. Same type of aircraft, same seat assignments.

Watch a movie, relax and wait for more information. As predicted one of the first things they do is serve us dinner. Which, by now, is a good idea. I had the steak which was really over cooked. But, at this point I was hungry. I tried to sleep a little bit during the flight, but it was difficult. The more difficult part was not knowing what was going to happen when we get to Munich.

Managed to get some sleep in, not much but a few hours at least. About an hour before we were set to land in Munich, they started serving breakfast. A number of passengers were managing to stay asleep, but I wasn’t comfortable enough to manage that. Besides I was a little hungry again.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs, a tasteless German sausage, a lump which appeared to be potato. This was served with a very over cooked and dried out croissant, “fresh” fruit, pineapple, a strawberry and six or seven blueberries, served with Chobani Greek style vanilla yogurt. Mixing the fruit and yogurt was actually satisfying. The eggs, sausage and potato all got a taste but were otherwise ignored.

We touched down in Munich just before it has gone 13:30. That is three-and-a-half hours late. It is also two hours after our Air Dolomiti flight was supposed to leave for Milan. Just before we landed, I received a text/email alert from United. We were now rebooked on Lufthansa Cityline flight 1856 for Milan at 15:35. We would get into Milan at 16:40.

There was sufficient time between landing in Munich and boarding the flight to Milan, to get through security, now completely automated, just scan your passport, in our case our Italian Passports, and walk through. There was time to use the restrooms, walk though the shops, and get to our gate. Shortly after it has gone 14:30 I approached the gate attendant and asked about boarding passes. I relinquished our Air Dolomiti boarding passes, she scanned them and printed new boarding passes for us. It was surprisingly easy.

Now we were generally impressed with the efficiency of the hand off. Of course, Air Dolomiti is owned by Lufthansa, so for them it probably wasn’t much of an issue. Air Dolomiti is an “Italian” regional airline, and Lufthansa Cityline is a “German” regional airline. Probably has do with taxes and routes. The service on both of them are probably the same, somewhat limited, but ment to be economically viable options for inter-European travel.

In the meantime, Harry V and Ali had made it to Milan. Dario was there to pick them up, but I don’t think he was going to hang around for several more hours until we arrived. Besides, what were V and Ali going to do for three or four hours? So, we suggested they get a room at the Sheraton Malpensa for the night, and we would all make our way to Torino tomorrow. This gave Ali and V the opportunity to take the train into Milan and visit the city, while we worked our way to Malpensa.

Once we knew our flight for Malpensa we booked a room for us at the Sheraton for the night. Yes, we probably could have had Dario stay and drive us to Torino, but it would be late a night and honestly, we were both very tired. There was also the question of our bags. Would they make it to Malpensa with us? It would maybe be better to hang at the airport for the night just in case our bags took a detour in getting there.

Business class on Lufthansa’s Cityline isn’t really “business class”. There are still six seat across, three on each side. There are three rows of seats designated as “business class” which are separated from the rest of the plane by a curtain. In business class they only use the window and aisle seats, leaving the middle seat vacant. A little more room and that is nice. So, of the eighteen seats, twelve of which are available for “business class”, there were only 6 or seven passengers. Again, if it was really just a flight between Munich and Malpensa, there would be no need for business class. However, traveling from SFO to Malpensa with extra bags and more than just a sixty-minute flight it is nice.

We arrived at Malpensa just before it had gone 17:00 on January 1, 2026. We boarded the first plane in SFO at about 13:00. Now that would be 22:00, December 31, 2025, in Milan. Our arrival was therefore eighteen-hours after we first boarded the plane, or if you wanted to make it worse, add another five hours from when we left the house in Sonoma. The important thing is we have made it to Milan.

We checked into the hotel, made dinner reservations for 18:00 in Il Canneto Restaurant which is inside the Sheraton. We headed up to our room, removed our flight socks and got somewhat comfortable. Harry V and Ali texted they were returning from Milan and wondered if they could join us for dinner. Great, we would all meet in Il Canneto at about 18:00.

Just a little walking around the hotel has suggested they are recently refurbished the common areas, at least. The carpet in the halls is new, a different color scheme than before. The bar outside Il Cannteo looked like it has been redone as well. The restaurant basically looked the same, but yet at the same time looked refreshed.

We headed down about 18:00, as we were hungry and tired. As it was New Years, they had a special of cotechino and lentils, traditional Italian New Years dish which is said to be a good luck combo for the upcoming year. Cotechino is a fatty Italian pork sausage which is slow cooked in lentils and vegetables. It is a symbol of abundance, fertility and spiritual strength, and therefore good luck for those that partake.

They served us complementary champagne on our arrival. Harry V and Ali showed up shortly after we sat down. The three of them started the meal with an appetizer of manhattans. I ordered a bottle of brunello di Montalcini Banfi DOCG, a very nice Tuscan wine made from 100% San Giovese grapes. With this we ordered two appetizer size plates of cotechino.

Harry V and I order the Ossobuco, servito con risotto alla milanese e gremolata (a braised veal shank, served with saffron risotto (milanese style) and lemon and herb purée. Really, I just wanted the risotto, but Mary wanted some of the ossobuco. Mary and Ali went with the branzino arrostito con crema di polenta speziata, pomodori confit, porro arrostito e croccante (roasted seabass fillet with creamy spiced polenta, confit tomatoes, roasted and crispy leeks).

Dinner was a really nice event. We talked about the trip, upcoming school and a little bit about family. We didn’t want Ali surprised by meeting too much of the family at once, or getting overwhelmed with too much information at once. As Ali loves chocolate, we ordered the Fondente di cioccolato con cuore morbido sorbetto al mandarino e crumble senza glutine (warm chocolate fondant, served with mandarin sorbet, red berry sauce, and sesame brittle, and of course, gluten-free) for dessert.

After dinner we headed back to our rooms. Harry V and Ali were keen to get started in the morning, so we agreed to meet them at 08:30 in the lobby. We would then take the next bus, 09:00, to Torino. There are multiple buses to Torino, and they don’t all go to the same point in Torino. However, Mary and I have taken the Autostradle both two and from Malpensa to Torino a couple times. It takes about two hours.  It stops in Torino near Porta Susa. From there it is easy to get a cab anywhere in the city.

The more important part of the evening was that I was able to take a nice warm bath at the hotel before retiring to bed. It is one of the things I really like about the Sheraton – nice large comfortable bathtubs. From there it was good night.

Buonanotte e ciao

Enrico e Maria