We have been to Europe just a couple weeks before but not for touristy reasons unfortunately. Now is the time to return for our planned trip that starts with a few days in Milan. A relative has provided a glowing review of the city and it is a major transportation hub which allows us to fly here cheaper when compared to almost any other European city. The trip doesn’t start that auspiciously with the plane being one hour late but that is fine as we have six hours in London and that should be enough, right?
Well after spending two hours on the runway as the plane is moving uncontrollably left and right as sand storms hit the airport we start to think that we are lucky if the plane even leaves Phoenix. But it does and while it feels that more than half of the airplane will miss their connections we still have a three hour cushion, phew. During the long flight we watch movies, try to sleep and try even harder to stomach the food which seems to get worse every time we fly to London.
We are already experts at passing through the Heathrow security but are still surprised everytime by the size of the airport and the number of people passing through it. Luckily we have lounge access and given that it is three hours before flight departure we are let in. And then we wait for hours as again the flight is getting delayed for two hours….quite unlucky.
At least it leaves finally and we arrive in Milan after 1 AM to what feels is almost an abandoned airport.
As it is usual in many European airports there is no jet bridge so we descend on the tarmac. More unusually there is no bus either as we can enter directly into the terminall after a short walk.
Immigration formalities are fast but then we wait another half hour for our luggage before making our way through the deserted airport past closed shops and weird art installations to the shuttle bus to the hotel. It is in fact the shuttle bus that links the two terminals and luckily it goes also during the night even though at a 45 minutes frequency.
The bus arrives faster than we expected and after a short walk through an Italian village at 2AM we arrive at the hotel. We check in take a few photos and then just fall exhausted onto the bed – will we even be able to wake up tomorrow for the free breakfast?
