Arrival in Italy

October 12-13, 2007 Friday/Saturday

After many weeks of planning and at least one postponement, I finally left San Francisco on British Airways for Italy. Late. 1-1/2 hours late. But there’s a silver lining to this cloud. My 3 hour 45 minute layover in London was only 2 hours 15 minutes. And this time it seems I went the right way through the airport. The last time I went through Heathrow, I ended up going through passport control and security. This time there was no passport control (I guess last time I goofed and took a wrong turn). Anyway, I made it from one gate in Terminal 1 to another gate in Terminal 1 in only 1 hour! (I hate Heathrow.) By the way, by now it’s Oct. 13 and Saturday due to going forward 8 time zones to London (9 to Italy).

The flights were uneventful otherwise. At least British Air tries to feed you. The dinner SF to London wasn’t bad. Breakfast was interesting—a cold egg salad sandwich? They even served a lunch (sandwich) on the short flight from London to Milan. Their coffee is nasty! Stick with the tea. Figuring that there’d be no lunch on the London-Milan flight, I ate a sandwich in the terminal—it was lunchtime anyway. This was my first non-US dollar purchase. Ouch! One measly little sandwich for $12 (5 GB pounds)! The euro won't be quite as bad, but still the exchange rates are painfully high.

Arrival in Milan Malpensa airport was a breeze. I picked up my Hertz rental car, which was supposed to have a Neverlost GPS system. I found out it was a portable GPS (gee, for what they charged, I could have bought one). Anyway, after a bit of experimenting, I figure out how to stick it to the windshield, plug it in, and set it up. Strangely, the European map system it uses doesn’t let you enter the street number. It only gets you to the street. I wonder what happens if the street is one of those that has multiple disconnected segments?

So off I go. The GPS is not helpful. It says go to the route. What route? So I follow the signs for the airport exit. Still no help. I figure I need to head toward Torino (aka Turin in English) so I go off that way. Finally the GPS says something: the dreaded “recomputing route”, meaning, of course, that you took a wrong turn. Even worse, the highway exit toward Torino is closed. Okay, recomputing route. The GPS takes me along a 2-lane road for 30 minutes before finally getting me on a multi-lane toll road. Very scenic, but it’s telling me that I have 2 hours 30 minutes to Alba. When I looked it up on the Michelin website, it said 1 hour 30 min. Not happy, and being tired, I’m cranky. Fortunately, being a geek, I know better than to yell at dumb machines (yeah, right).

So we take the scenic route out of Milan and get on the tollway. I’m going along swimmingly when the GPS tells me I need to exit to get to Alba. But I’m nowhere near Alba and on a perfectly good 6 lane tollway that has (infrequent) signs telling me Alba is straight ahead (as I remembered when I looked at the paper map Hertz kindly provided). Of course, at this point you’re thinking: uh, oh. It was really weird, you could see where the car was going on the display, but the GPS didn’t think there was a road there. It thought I was driving 85 mph out in the middle of some field or something. And you could see the route it wanted me to take off to the side, sort of parallel. So I figure that the GPS maps haven’t been updated in a while. I also figure it’s time to pull over and check the paper map to be sure. Yep, it clearly shows a major toll way from Alessandria to Asti and Asti to Alba (yes, that’s Asti as in Asti spumante and Barbera d’Asti).

So I ignore the GPS and follow the highway. Good thing. It cut about 20 min off the trip and landed me right back on the route the GPS wanted me to take going into Alba.

BTW, the A series toll ways in Italy have speed limits of about 66 mph/110 kph, but you’d get run over if you only went that fast. I was going 85-90mph and people were blowing past me going at least 110mph. At least they are very conscientious about staying to the right and keeping the left lane free for passing (a most welcome change from California).

The GPS got it wrong again as it tried to get me to the street my hotel was on. It told me to turn left into opposing traffic on a one-way street. After going past and getting the “recomputing route” treatment I got back to the same place. Luckily I saw the train station and a parking garage next to it. I knew from the hotel that this parking garage was where I’d have to park anyway. I unloaded and started schlepping my bags. It wasn’t far and I got to my room in Hotel Savona. Not a bad place. Large room (for an 80 euro/night place in Europe) and a large bathroom with shower, tub, bidet, and toilet.

I had lunch in Heathrow, so now I needed dinner. This is Italy where they eat late, right? Well, not in Alba. I took a shower and changed and went out looking for a restaurant at about 9:50. The story was the same: our kitchen is closed for the night (and it was Saturday night!). I went back to the hotel and asked the desk clerk—he gave me a few suggestions. Two of three were closed. The last, Buontempo, looked pretty nice and was very popular. Saturday seems to be a night for big groups to eat out—most of the restaurants I looked into had several tables of 6-12 people.

The manager of Buontempo chatted me up while I was waiting for a table and poured me a glass of Barolo (I wondered: how much is this going to cost?). I ordered the prix fixe menu at 28 euro: crudo di manzo all’Albese (like carpaccio), tagliatelle al sugo con porcini, vitello brasato a Barolo (veal braised in Barolo wine). I also got another glass of the Barolo and a bottle of sparkling water. Service was okay, and the food was good, but not great, and there were lots of rooms with lots of tables. It reminded me of Buca di Beppo back in Palo Alto (but with better food). After I was done, no one came by to see if I wanted the check. I saw another table leave and go upstairs to pay, so I followed.

The manager tapped some numbers on a calculator from some scribbles on a small piece of paper, typed a number into the cash register and printed off the receipt. 25 euros? I ordered a 28 euro prix fixe (but didn’t get the dessert). I had 2 glasses of Barolo (not a cheap wine, even here where it’s made) and a large bottle of water. Hey, I must have gotten a hell of a deal on the dessert! I left a nice tip. Some things do go right.