This was the last day of the trip except for travel. At least 4 of us had been to Melano before so we decided not to try and go into the city and do the shopping, duomo, etc. Instead we drove to Como at the south western corner of the lake.

Como is pretty city on the lake. We appreciated that they had a few larger underground parking garages right down by the lake’s edge. They offered easy parking (hard to find in Italy) even for a mini-van and were covered with parks.

There was a monument to people who had died under the fascists in world war II. It was a 3 sided monument with some of their last recorded words, their name and when and how they were killed.

Nearby there was a small monument and museum to Volta who called Como home. The museum was still closed for lunch when we walked past.

We walked over to the funicular and rode it to the top of the hill (7 minutes and around 4 euros) for a nice view of the city.

After lunch the ladies did some shopping and those of us dressed appropriately (or close enough) visited the cathedral. After more gelatto (a familiar theme) we drove to our hotel in Milano.

We stayed at the hotel Vienne near the Linate airport. It was fairly easy to find but parking in Milano is difficult. We ended up parking with our wheels up on a curb like real Italians. The day was very warm and the hotel was warmer. For people who used internet booking sites there was a sign saying you could purchase air conditioning in the room for 3 euros (5 euros for your whole stay). That definitely seemed worth the cost, but of the 3 rooms we had none of them had functioning air conditioners. We were able to trade 2 of the 3 rooms for rooms with working units. The girls ended up with the hot room. We could use my laptop on the internet for free we were told but not from our room as it did not work.

After a nice dinner we got back to the hotel at 10pm and most of the group got together to try and connect to the internet but it did not work. When they went downstairs they learned that the machine that connects to the internet was turned off at 10am and they would not turn it on until the morning. I went to bed early as I got up with Danna to see that she got on a bus to the airport at 5am. It was good that I got up because the bus did not really start until 6am according to a man who was working 10 feet from the bus stop so I drove her to the airport. I never did quite get back to sleep after that.