The family and I spent the night in Milan Italy two nights ago. The trip to Milan was my first chance to try out Microsoft's Autoroute 2007 software. It worked great navigating us to our hotel. It wasn't quite as good as having a true integrated navigation system, but it got us to our hotel despite me making a mistake or two. The drive took about 4 hours including a stop for dinner and a diaper change in Southern Swizterland. We stayed at a very beautiful hotel, Le Meridian Gallia, near the main train station. I got the room at a great rate off of priceline.com, but the food charges still made it an expensive night.
The trip to Florence also went quite well. It was about a 3 hour drive, but we stopped twice to change daipers and get food. The Italian Autogrill on the highway service areas had great sandwiches! However, Ai and I can't figure out why they didn't have seats on any of the toilets...
Towards the midpoint of our drive to Florence, we managed to break the GPS sensor that came with Autoroute. Neither Ai nor myself know who managed to bend it so bad that it wouldn't work, and I think it is pretty poorly designed to have broken so easy. While at our second rest stop, I was able to bend the sensor just to the perfect position to get it to come back on. I then fixed it in place with some electric tape I picked up in the gas station's auto repair area. The sensor worked all the way to Florence, and I hope it holds together long enough to get us out of Italy. I've tried to navigate Italian streets using a map before, and it's a painful experience. The streets seem to change names every 300 yards, and street signs seem to be optional.
Florence has been a bit of a bust. The weather has been overcast with misty rain. The idea today was to hit a few shops, get gelato, and enjoy a couple of good meals. We got the meals and gelato right, but we didn't have luck with the shops due to bad navigation (street names are a problem when walking too) and sleepy kids. Tomorrow we're going to try to get the Duomo in (got turned away because of the stroller today) and maybe one museum. Then we're either heading back to Zurich or over to Genoa. Genoa is home to the biggest aquarium in Europe, and I think it be good to do something that would be fun for everyone. The weather is only going to get worse this week, so an indoor option sound great. After Genoe we'll head back to Zurich. We may stop in Lugano, Milan, or Geneva on the way. If the kids are sleeping well, we'll drive straight through.
Sorry about the lack of pictures. We had some good kid pics today, but nothing that really screamed Italy is great. We'll put up a collection of pics in a few days on Ai's website or maybe I'll create a new one.
