A little more Italy (Europe 2025 part 11)

This post is just going to be kind of a grab-bag of our other few days in Italy -- I think I was starting to run out of energy by this point (I really need to stop trying to do so much in such a short time) plus my mom's birthday (the whole reason for this trip) was during this time and I needed to focus on that. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

We'll start off with a quick look around Porta Nuova station, a real classic. This isn't the last we'll be seeing of it, as I have a whole retail set coming up touring the in-station Esselunga! 

The circular elevators up to the food court look a little out of place, but they're also pretty cool. Not as cool as inclined elevators, but still. 

Our train to Milan was rather uninteresting -- just a standard Regionale, using train cars that are around the same age as the French ones from a few days earlier, which have sadly been retrofitted with modern, uncomfortable interiors. 

We tried to go up to the roof of the Duomo that afternoon, but despite the lack of any sort of line, the ticket sellers insisted it was sold out for the day and there was no way we could go up. Things like this really take all the joy out of traveling these days. Everywhere has implemented book-in-advance systems, but they're all but impossible to use with American credit cards (we tried booking in advance for the next day but failed miserably with a whole bunch of credit cards from multiple banks) and they prohibit you from being spontaneous when you have a bit of free time and nice weather for something like this. (We did manage to go up the next day, since the people at the ticket office actually felt like being helpful then, but I didn't bother taking pictures since you saw all that last year.) 

My parents just gave up and went back to the hotel to rest, but I had a bit of unfinished business on Milan's trams. Last time I was here, I rode all of the types of trams they had in service, but missed out on the new Stadler trams by one day (they entered service on the day I was flying home)! So I had to go track one down, and after a bit of waiting around and nearly giving up, I finally found one on the 31. (Thankfully, they're still only running on a couple routes as far as I can tell, which makes them easier to find.) Unlike all of Milan's trams before them, these are double-ended reversible vehicles, something that's going completely unused for now since there are turnaround loops at each terminal and few (if any) crossovers that could be used to reverse the tram. I'm not sure if they have any plans to build new infrastructure that would use the bidirectional capability or if they just wanted to be modern (though a lot of Italy's tram networks, including Rome and Turin, do operate with a mix of turnaround loops and bidirectional crossovers). 

On the way back, I ended up on this train with an interior ad wrap (already unusual) with this absolutely wild pattern -- who thought this was a good idea??

The next day, after going up on the Duomo roof, we decided to head out to Lake Como, since I liked it so much last time I was here. I was sad to see a new Rock show up instead of a TAF like they were running back in February, since one of those was the very first train I rode the first time we went to Italy back in the early 00s. 

I had unfinished business here too -- back in February, the funicular up the hill was unexpectedly closed. Unfortunately, while it was open this time, it had a line down the block and none of us really had the patience for that (plus, we could see that each train was completely packed, and none of us like crowds). 

 

Regardless, Como was beautiful as always, and the weather was a bit better than back in February! And I guess I still have a reason to come back again.