Margherita to Milano

The day dawned cool and overcast, confirming the fact that I had heard rain during the night. It was time to move on again anyway, so hopefully we could outrun those dark clouds hovering over the hilltops menacingly. 

Our drivers arrived right on time and we were soon travelling, as has become our custom, 3 in a black mercedes car and 5 in a black mercedes van. We only had a short distance to go at first, from Santa Margherita to Camogli, a small fishing village located on the west side of the Peninsula of Portofino, almost directly opposite Santa Margherita. 

It took approximately half an hour to reach Camogli where we enjoyed wandering the streets and exploring this quaint village and its imposing castle fortress, which once protected the village from ocean borne marauders. There were several unique shops, a far cry from the tourist pfaff evident in the Cinque Terre villages, and more affordable than the upmarket Santa Margherita stores, designed to please the wealthy from Milan who own holiday homes there. 

After a bite to eat from a well-regarded bakery, we returned to the vehicles, one of our group already resting in the van as she was far from well. The two hour drive to Milan took us on a mixture of the very scenic, winding coastal roads, to motorways through agricultural land, the flattest we have thus far experienced in Italy. 

On arrival at the hotel, the protracted task of check-in complete, it was decided our friend would be best to go to the hospital to be checked and rule out any kind of infection. Sheryl and I went along to make sure she was ok and to help navigate the system, as three heads are definitely better than one when navigating foreign country, hospital emergency departments!  

Arriving at the ED by taxi just before 5pm, and after a slight misunderstanding with the taxi driver who wanted to drop us at the front of the hospital rather than the emergency department (pronto soccorso), which as it turned out, was right around the other side. We eventually made him understand however, and reached the right door, only to find a maze of lines to follow with instructions all in Italian of course. Finding English speaking staff was challenging. 

Finally she was triaged, and we all entered the waiting area, which had seats only for patients, not for those waiting with them, thus began hours of standing for Sheryl and I. If you sat, even if there were not a lot of patients waiting ( there were occasional lulls), staff shouted and armed security guards would move you on. After an hour our friend was taken through, presumably to see a doctor. After another two hours with no news, Sheryl peeked around a corner to find her sitting on a seat, awaiting the results of blood tests. Next time I checked, she was still there, and the next time Sheryl checked, she was told our friend was next. It was another hour before she was actually ‘next’ and then, unbeknown to us she was taken through,  put on a drip and given some other tests. 

At the five hour mark, Sheryl gleaned this information from a staff member, who was the first one who actually set about getting a status update for us. The news at that point was that she was on a drip and when said drip was complete, she may be able to come back to the hotel with us, although there were no guarantees. Finally our friend emerged from the doors of the ED and we were able to retrieve her passport, once she had paid for treatment, convince them to call a taxi on our behalf, and exit the building into the dark back blocks of the hospital to await our taxi. 

We returned safely to the hotel at midnight, pleased to have our friend with us and hopefully feeling much better and ready to continue with the tour after a rest day tomorrow.