I loved Manarola so much that I rescheduled my train to 11.58am not realizing that my trip to Milan would be using 2 regional trains instead of just 1. The usual route would consist of 1 Regional train and 1 intercity train. I had no idea that they don’t have air conditioning in Regional train and traveling without air conditioning in the summer afternoon were not a good idea. I was so blessed that nobody complained and thought of it as part and parcel of a holiday. My kids even though they were sweating, they fell asleep as soon as the train started moving 😅

So don’t made the same mistake as I was. Looked at carefully what type of train you would be using especially when you are leaving from Cinque Terre.

There are 4 types of trains run by Trenitalia

1. Freccia trains: the fastest and most comfortable. I took this from Roma to Firenze

2. Eurostar/city trains: also high speed and usually inter country. It can be booked 3 months before and easily sold out. I took this from Milan to Spiez

3. Intercity train: has first class and second class and have aircon

4. Regional train: the slowest, only have second class and no aircon

Anyhow we made use of our last morning in Manarola, so it was not all bad 😅 We got to have breakfast and took one last stroll in Manarola before going back to our apartment to pack.

We finally left and walked to the station and wait for our train (and later suffer in heat inside the train 😓)

Milan

Arriving in Milan, we only had to do a short walk to our Hotel: C Atlantis. We all had to shower after sweating in a hot train before taking the metro to the Duomo and later had dinner with my friends. Achita was excited seeing so many pigeons in the Duomo and started chasing them 🙂 After dinner, our friend drove us to see Duomo at night which looked more majestic against the stark dark sky.

We only spent a very short time in Milan because Milan only served as a break between Cinque Terre and Switzerland (Grindelwald). The journey was too long if we didn’t break it for a night in Milan. Plus I get to catch up with my good friend who live in Milan. One night is not enough to cover Milan but sometimes you had to make do with the time that you have.