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| Leaving Switzerland |
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| Damaged Fiat |
Oct. 4, 2015-Savona, Italy
One Place To Another-Getting To Savona, Italy
We had a leisurely start to our day and easily made the train to Milan. Before boarding we lunched on chicken hot dogs at Hot Dog King. Not bad. We also bought provisions for the train. It was only a three-hour trip, but you never know. We went to reliable old Migros Grocery and David waited outside with the luggage while I shopped. That's when he noticed permanently affixed brackets for securing a dog leash shopping. So dog friendly.
The train was standing room only. Our seatmates were a young man from California who was a biologist working with the Park Department at the Grand Canyon. He was Swiss-Mexican and visiting his relatives in Switzerland. The standees were Greek, all young. They spoke several languages, were college grads, and complained they couldn't find work in Greece due to the economy. One girl worked for $28 a day. When they got off we were joined by a French speaking couple who made no attempt at English, nor did I make an attempt at French.
Our car was a rolling nursery. It was noisy, but not bothersome. Interesting to hear parents interacting with kids in all languages. Loved hearing three-year olds switch from English to German.
We had visitors from their version of the FDA, sniffer dog and all. Then three border patrol guards boarded with a prisoner. They all sat quietly and got off at the next station. Gulp.
We cruised past beautiful Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore in the town of Stresa. We visited there many years ago and it was lovely as ever. We arrived in Milan more or less on time and found the car rental place after asking two policemen and a woman at the money exchange office for directions. We have a tiny Fiat that's a good size for us. It's white, not an "obnoxious color" as we requested. It was kind of banged up so I took pictures of it: just saying.
We plugged in our Garmin GPS and got nothing. Evidently they disabled the lighter in the car. We had another cord so tried that. It seems the Garmin was not charged and needed to be before it would turn on. We had good directions to get to the highway so took off. But there was a problem with the Garmin. If it is being charged, it won't turn on to give directions. We couldn't fully charge it before we needed to use it so we kept turning it on and off and charging it in between. Somehow it had enough juice to find this crazy hotel we saw on line. It's on a side street in Savona. As I checked in a guy was delivering pizza. I ordered one. Fortunately, the owner/receptionist is British and has been helpful. The one thing we can't seem to do is call Auto Europe tech help about the Garmin. We tried using other cords to charge, it but it won't recognize them.
There's always another day or we can resort to maps.
Hopefully we'll find France tomorrow. Can't be far:)
Toby
We had a leisurely start to our day and easily made the train to Milan. Before boarding we lunched on chicken hot dogs at Hot Dog King. Not bad. We also bought provisions for the train. It was only a three-hour trip, but you never know. We went to reliable old Migros Grocery and David waited outside with the luggage while I shopped. That's when he noticed permanently affixed brackets for securing a dog leash shopping. So dog friendly.
The train was standing room only. Our seatmates were a young man from California who was a biologist working with the Park Department at the Grand Canyon. He was Swiss-Mexican and visiting his relatives in Switzerland. The standees were Greek, all young. They spoke several languages, were college grads, and complained they couldn't find work in Greece due to the economy. One girl worked for $28 a day. When they got off we were joined by a French speaking couple who made no attempt at English, nor did I make an attempt at French.
Our car was a rolling nursery. It was noisy, but not bothersome. Interesting to hear parents interacting with kids in all languages. Loved hearing three-year olds switch from English to German.
We had visitors from their version of the FDA, sniffer dog and all. Then three border patrol guards boarded with a prisoner. They all sat quietly and got off at the next station. Gulp.
We cruised past beautiful Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore in the town of Stresa. We visited there many years ago and it was lovely as ever. We arrived in Milan more or less on time and found the car rental place after asking two policemen and a woman at the money exchange office for directions. We have a tiny Fiat that's a good size for us. It's white, not an "obnoxious color" as we requested. It was kind of banged up so I took pictures of it: just saying.
We plugged in our Garmin GPS and got nothing. Evidently they disabled the lighter in the car. We had another cord so tried that. It seems the Garmin was not charged and needed to be before it would turn on. We had good directions to get to the highway so took off. But there was a problem with the Garmin. If it is being charged, it won't turn on to give directions. We couldn't fully charge it before we needed to use it so we kept turning it on and off and charging it in between. Somehow it had enough juice to find this crazy hotel we saw on line. It's on a side street in Savona. As I checked in a guy was delivering pizza. I ordered one. Fortunately, the owner/receptionist is British and has been helpful. The one thing we can't seem to do is call Auto Europe tech help about the Garmin. We tried using other cords to charge, it but it won't recognize them.
There's always another day or we can resort to maps.
Hopefully we'll find France tomorrow. Can't be far:)
Toby
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