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We took the train from Milan to Strasbourg and caught another train in Strasbourg to Milan. During the first leg of our trip we sat with Catholic priest from north of Paris who was on his way to Strasbourg to teach for a week. It's lucky he spoke some English so we could have conversation. He was a funny guy that liked to make fun of the royal family of England.

In Strasbourg we had a sleeper car. Our conductor seemed nice until he charged us 25000 lira for breakfast. We thought it would be free when he asked us if we wanted coffee or tea. I had to find a money machine in the Milan station and come back and pay the guy.

At the train station in Milan, we had to find a taxi because we had no idea where our hotel was. We stayed in an outdated hotel away from the center city. We were pretty bummed and Sharon wanted to leave right away. We couldn't cancel our reservations, so we toughed it out. Bad first impression. I had a hell of a time getting the computer to dial out - their phone system still uses pulse dialing. After a long nap, we headed downtown. There was a trolley line that took us right down to where we needed to be.

Our 2nd impression of Milan wasn't much better only because of the dirtiness of the city. Words to describe Milan: motor scooters, women in fur, no lines on the roads, good food and wine. After walking through a big atrium area we came out into the piazza del Duomo. (most of the place names I don't remember and some will probably be wrong). There was a large crowd of people watching a film crew. We watched for a moment and didn't recognize anyone. The most impressive place we saw was a one end of the piazza - the cathedral. I took a lot of pictures of it inside and out. After that we found the tourist office to see if there were any tours we could take. The lady told us that the chapel where da Vinci's Last Supper was closed and pointed us to a castle. The castle was OK, but after the Louvre the day before anything is a letdown. By the time we got done with the castle (not long), we went to a few bars until the restaurants opened (7pm). In one of the bars, this lady came in with her dog (common in Europe) and we fed the dog all the happy hour snacks that had meat. The dog was almost on the table and the lady had to drag it out.

We found a restaurant with an English menu (guess what kind - Italian) and it turned out to be the best thing we did. The food was great, Sharon picked out a nice wine, and we met a couple from Texas on their honeymoon.

I'm writing this on Tuesday on the way to Interlaken in Switzerland. The train ride was through the mountains - miles and miles of tunnels. But when we weren't in the tunnels there were some breathtaking views. Unfortunately I couldn't get any pictures from the train. Wednesday's pictures will be good. We originally planned to go straight to Jungfraujoch, but didn't realize that our Europass's don't cover that trip. It's extra - much extra. More in tomorrow's journal.