Postojna, Slovenia -> Milano, Italy

The hotel breakfast this morning was no less heart-breaking than the rest of our hotel.  It just kills me to see this restaurant: it was obviously planned and furnished at one point with a great deal of care and expense. And now it's languishing, to the point that Brie and Geoff think they might have seen a mouse scamper through the dining room yesterday evening.  So this morning I carefully stuck to the prepackaged foods at breakfast.

But our children, with through those wonderful kid-goggles through which they see the world (tinted, I suppose, with glitter and sugar floss), thought it was a fun, and so very fancy, meal.  Particularly Joey, who was a big fan of the medieval theme.  "I be a knight, too," he informed me, nodding approvingly at the suits of armor that were standing guard over our table.

After we packed up the car, we let the kids play on the hotel playground for a little longer.  Thinking of the play that we'd seen at the Kinderhotel, I suggested playing Smurfs to the kids, pretending I was Gargamel, hauling any kid that I could manage to catch, into my sandbox soup pot while they contrived clever escapes and derring-do.

But I lived to regret that inspiration.  For the entire ride to Milan, Ella and Alex alternated among  humming the Smurfs theme song and peppering Dennis and me with questions about Smurf lore and plot lines and begging to play Smurfs again.  She-ra, I think, has been displaced in their affections.

So finally, tired of talking about the little blue buggers, I handed the kids the iPhone.  And this is what happens when the kids discover that there's a camera in your phone.

We had lunch in one of the restaurants that spans the freeway, which pleased Alex especially.  Unfortunately, I think I was the only adult of our party who enjoyed the food: my platter of prosciutto and melon was unequivocally the best rest stop food ever.

Ella found spotted pasta turtles

After we finished lunch, I took the kids down to the little store, where we bought the giant noodles I'd promised Ella on our trip out: Ella chose some large seashell pasta, and Alex picked out spaghetti noodles, longer than Joey is tall.  And they each picked out a dessert, a little road trip treat, before we went outside to wait for everyone else to finish lunch.  As we were waiting, I didn't realize that we'd exited on the wrong side of the restaurant bridge: we were on the opposite side of the freeway from the rest of our group.  I should have realized what I'd done. I did, at least, have a vague sense that things looked different.  But it was Dennis who finally realized what I'd done and came looking for us.

A (very) little fuel for the road

Brie and Geoff graciously took the lead on driving today, so Dennis and I had an easy day as far as driving and navigating go.  Although Dennis, after a good deal of mind-numbing time behind the wheel, is starting to feel eager for home. He says he has a particular line from the Hobbit running around in his head: "He wished again and again for his nice bright hobbit hole. Not for the last time."


Although, in my opinion at least, things always improve once we get where we're going.  After we got to our hotel in Milan, the same one we stayed in on our trip out, we turned around and quickly left again.  This time through, we were determined to see the city.

We paused only long enough to throw our bags inside and to change into some more modest clothing. We needed to make it past the fashion police at the entrance to the Milan Duomo, the cathedral.

Having learned our lesson in Venice, we went to the cathedral first thing. Alex was the only kid who wanted to go in with me, so while Ella and Alex and Dennis played in the Piazza, Alex and I inspected the architecture. He made a game of quietly hopping around on the floor, avoiding the black marble, while I stared up at the ceiling.

Alex was particularly interested in the rows of prayer candles and had many, many questions. I explained, as best I could, that people light those candle to make a special wish to God.  At that, Alex got really excited, asking if he could please, please light a candle, too, please. Suspicious of the gleam in his eye, I asked him what he was wishing for.

"I wish to become Zuperloo, for real," he said. Zuperloo is the superhero alter-ego that he made up a few months ago.

I gently told Alex that wishing for super powers wasn't exactly the sort of wish they had in mind, and that, more often, people light candles for friends who are sick or in trouble. At that, Alex nodded and solemnly said, "Then I would like to light a candle for Kael. I want him to get better."  I explained that Kael's condition, the rapidly-improving stomach bug, wasn't so very grave and probably didn't require a candle.  I didn't want Alex to be too worried about his little buddy.

"Oh, well, if he doesn't need my candle, then I would really like to light a candle for my Purple Kitty.  I want to make a special wish that she never falls on the ground out of my bed and gets smushed or hurt. I love her so much."  I remembered how, once, the priest at my in-law's church sprinkled Ella's stuffed turtle with holy water during the blessing of the animals. I took that to mean that the Catholic Church wouldn't mind too terribly much if Alex lit a candle for his favorite stuffed animal. So Purple Kitty got a taper.

We walked around the rest of the cathedral, me doing my best to impress upon Alex the awesomeness of this place, and also focusing on distracting him from noticing the Cardinals that were entombed in glass off to one side. That would have started conversation ten times more complicated than the one about the prayer candles.

After our fairly quick walk around inside, we rejoined the rest of the family.  Ella and Joey had gotten little string bracelets tied around their wrists by "some really nice men!"  (says Ella). Really, they were hustlers who were very disappointed when Dennis turned out his empty pockets: sadly for them we're very short on coin at this point, with this being our last day in the European Union.

Alex and Ella, looking out at the Piazza del Duomo,
hoping to spot another nice man who might give Alex
a free bracelet. No luck.

For dinner, we walked across the street to a mall, which had a had a Rick Steves-recommended food court on the top floor.  Of course, this being Milan, it was an incredibly posh mall, and the food court was more a collection of boutique gourmet restaurants.  We chose one with outdoor seating, with a table right across the street from the spires of the cathedral.

An early preview of giant pasta for Ella

And along with that stunning view, we enjoyed the best food of our trip. The restaurant, Obika Mozzarella Bar, specialized in buffalo mozzarella, so we did a cheese flight, a tasting of three big globes of mozzarella. That, along with a platter of meats and some amazing pestos, and the most delicious ravioli, and also, because we just couldn't resist it, fried mozzarella...well, it all made for some very happy travellers.

While everyone else settled the bill, I wandered around the food hall with Ella and Alex, who were drawn directly, of course, to the candy counter.  I let them each get a small bag of candy, and agreed that they could choose some for Joey as well, to eat tomorrow.  For tonight, we had gelato on our minds.

We take our wishes where we can get 'em.

Since Rick Steves did such a fine job finding our dinner, we entrusted our dessert to him as well and made our way to the Grom gelateria. On our way to the gelateria, we walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a famous arcade dating back to the late 1800s, now home to some very chi-chi boutiques.

There's a funny little custom related to this arcade: the floor is tiled with some stunning mosaics, and one of these is of the mascot of Turin, the bull.  Apparently if you spin on our heel on the bull's testicles, you get a wish. Apparently, it's a popular custom. I'd call this more of a steer.

I pointed out the small cluster of tourists to Alex and told him the story. He started tugging my hand toward the bull.  "Can I do that? I want to do that! Is it allowed to make my Zuperloo wish here?" I told hem, yes, this was probably a more appropriate venue for that particular wish.

While we were walking to the gelateria, Dennis did his best to get a Euros from a dozen different ATMs, none of which would serve him on a Sunday night.  Luckily, our gelateria accepted credit cards, but as I was fishing around to extract mine, I realized that my wallet...oh crud.  Yep. It was gone.

Little friends, squeezed behind the entrance door to the gelateria

Crossing my fingers in hope that I'd left it at the mall, I my peach gelato (I have priorities!) and rushed back to the counter where I'd gotten the kids their candy. I probably should have paused long enough to spin on the bull's balls on the way there, but it turned out good luck wishes weren't necessary.  The sales girl grinned at my relief as she handed over my wallet. I have better fortune than I deserve.

By the time everyone caught up with me, it was definitely time to go home: it was late, and the kids were giddy with ice cream and exhaustion. And we have one more long day to go.

Joey didn't quite make it home from Milan. But Ella helped hold his head in
a more comfortable position.