Day 51 (Monday) Plitvicka to Milan

Day of travel where everything had to fit together and it did! Almost. Had a heap of fun on the Milan train leg where everyone was playing musical chairs with seat allocations and trying to cope with the huge design fault on the Italian fast trains- NO luggage space. In the middle of one swap session along came a guy with a double-bass!!About 4 languages flying around trying to sort it out. Quite funny really.

Left the lakes about 7.30 and headed up to join the A6 near Zagreb - very cold and foggy but good trip especially when we joined the freeway - easy all the way to Reuka where it wasback to campervans and trucks - another international excursion into Slovinia where two border guards stamped our passports twice before they let us in!

We made it all the way to Trieste station where  the car was due at 11 - and we arrived at 11.10!! In time to catch the earlier train to Venice and also the earlier train to Padova (open ticket) for the Milan express where all the fun started.

Into Milan at about 7 - Milan Centrale has to be one of the biggest railway stations in the world - a carry-over of Mussolini's Fascists - very grand and over-powering. Bad first impressions of Milan - grumpy taxi-driver, refused to help load luggage, 11 euro ride to hotel  and would not accept card - got no tip. Hotel recommended a good restaurant where we met a lovely lady from Sweden on a business trip and chatted to her. Off in the morning for the train ride through the north of Italy, through the alps and through Switzerland (weather reports indicate a fresh fall of snow)  to France and Burgundy. All in one day! Really looking forward to it.

Cheers all

Trivia: The hotel Jessero at the lakes was built by the communist Yugoslave government and is still government operated. That explains why we found NINE cleaners cleaning the foyer this morning!

Pictures:
*The Hotel Jessero
*a duck on the clear lake waters
*different warning signs in Croatia - deer. (they also have them for bears and wolves)