Card 30

Returning to Bellagio-Milan-Turino-Paree-Home

For the return trip across the lake to Bellagio, we lucked out in getting the fascinating (to me, as a nerd) ADDA car ferry. This vehicle was symmetric, had no bow nor stern. It moved across the lake first in one direction, then the reverse ... without turning! I got some views of the two identical control rooms. The engine controls had direction meters, one for each of two propulsion systems. Each had a 360 degree aiming readout. Must have had some sort of underwater, water jet. The clouds dropped for us, to give more great fog-laden views, this time of Bellagio. On one I have marked where we stayed (arrow on the right) and our fav restaurant, out near the point ("Punta") on the left.

MY nostalgic (OK, Steve, we'll go with "bad") last images are of the rainy night as we walked home from the Punta. Hey, what do you want, they were 1 second exposures. I like them.

Our return trip was the next morning. We left at 5:45 am (the hotel's front doors were still barred, we had to disbar them) to catch the 5:55 (first) ferry across the lake. Needless to say, it was devoid of tourists (except us). I had a long but not wordy chat with a long-retired fighter pilot, totally Italian, who had been stationed up near Trieste. He used to hunt mushrooms - porcini, truffles, and one other which has evaporated from my linguistic repertoire. No chanterelles.

We drove in the sometimes driving rain down the same road we had just witnessed the car being lifted onto, to arrive in Milan. Dropped the car, hung around the airport until they said sorry, no trips out today. Wanna go to Turin or stay in Milan overnight? Sorry, the bus won't get you to the Turin airport in time. At the Avis counter I realized that my credit card and license, which had lived in my pocket all trip long, were gonzo. Nada. oops. Looked like plan B ... or is it C? But after turning the entire contents of my knapsack unto the airport floor, I found them, neatly stuck in between two pages of my notebook! Ah, then I checked Hertz. Half the rate. Who'd-a-known? So it goes. We took the Hertz machine. More driving rain, the Italians have a cruel notion of on-ramps to inter-city roads. Fully 1/4 the trip was this on-ramp. Went thru a town, turned, turned, forked, split. Signs disappeared, reappeared, signs to the Eastward direction (we wanted Westward). Arrived with about an hour to take-off.

Seems they only allow 4 bags, not the 5 we had (including M's easel) in the hold. So we took one more in carry-on ... until we realized that it had the ceramic kitchen knives ... well, will they show on x-rays? probably not. But if they DO decide to search it, for whatever reason ... ah, well. For $75 it went as "excess" baggage. c'est la vie.

And the rest went smoothly, except for a traffic jam in gay Paree, between terminals 2D and 2F, which threatened to derail our departure (OK, I know is a mis-metaphor). But even that couldn't (quite) stop us. With Slava's help (I still can't believe he surprised us at the airport for a flight we weren't even supposed to be on), we got home at 7 pm, for a grand total of (only) 19.3 hours.

Steve had 16, Duncan had 17, Dr. Ed had 20, we had 19.

Think you are done with watching these travelogues? Yes. It was an incredible trip and we are both happy to be home. As Dorothy said, There's no place like home ... There's no place like home ... There's no place like home.

Dorothy's right, no place, no place on earth is like home. Home for you there, and now my own bed at night here. Thanks for all the wonderful images both in pics and pens. Glad you're back safe and sound. -- Love, Betty Sue

Glad your trip was fabulous. Pictures were great, but enough already, my C drive is almost full and it wasn't even my trip. Anyway I have about an hour of viewing your pictures ahead of me. -- Love B