Upon arrival at the Milan airport, our first effort was to make our way towards Geneva. This entailed a number of steps. First, we needed to take the Express train to Milan, which was about a 40 minute train ride away. Then, we need to take a metro train to Milan Centrale station, so that we could travel to Geneva. At Milan Centrale, we purchased the train tickets via the automated machine because the line looked like it would take about an hour to get through. At this point, you might be wondering how this was accomplished even though we didn't speak Italian. Well, it all progressed quite easily because the ticket agent spoke English and all of the machines had the option to choose English as your language, thank you very much.
The only unfortunate part about our train ride from Milan to Italy was that the air conditioning was out on this particular train. Fortunately for us, this is the only time this occurred on our trip. So, a train ride and four hours later of struggling to stay awake, we arrived in Geneva. At this point, we revived and were alert enough to enjoy our surroundings. We had booked a room at the Novotel in Geneva, which turned out to be quite nice and quite hi-tech. (As a side note, Europe is quite technologically ahead of us in certain aspects, and maybe I will get into that more on another post if the mood strikes me.)
After checking into our room, we took ourselves and the handy map the hotel gave us and went for a short walk down to Lake Geneva, which was very beautiful. After that, we were in the mood for food. We opted for a restaurant close to the hotel that was recommended to us, which turned out to be a good choice. Being in Switzerland, we had to be hokey and go for the obvious choice, especially when traveling with a child, and we ordered the fondue. There was no way to go wrong with fondue, along with a Swiss beer. The service was lovely and unhurried. In Europe, I tend to notice that people take several hours when dining and the staff NEVER hurry one along.
All in all, a lovely opening to our trip.
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