We awoke at sunrise to a beautiful day with equally gorgeous views. We had breakfast overlooking the lake then took off for Milan. Thank god it wasn't raining, but the road trip was still fairly precarious.

The Italian drivers took it all in their stride and flew around the blind corners on the wrong side of the too narrow road with abandon. We were less cavalier. We were almost as stressed as the night before! Luckily this stretch wasn't as long (and it wasn't raining) and we were soon on the autostraude. But then we got to see further examples of the Italian drivers' death wish!

Italians don't use indicators much and if they do they leave them on while not changing lanes. They seem to like weaving in and out of lanes and exceeding the 130 kph speed limit by excessive amounts. It is commonplace for them to speed up to the rear of a car going that speed and blowing their horn in annoyance to encourage that 'slower' driver to move over before racing off to leave the others for dust. Or, if they are in the slower lane and another vehicle is slowing them down, they just change into the fast lane oblivious to any other traffic that then needs to slam on the brakes to accommodate their lane change. I wondered at the Italian road toll!

Our plan for this morning was for Anthony to drop me in Milan where I had a ticket to see da Vinci's Last Supper. He was to visit Monza racetrack and we would then meet up to travel to our next stop. Unfortunately I missed the Last Supper and had to starve (he he) and he missed Monza! Not a very satisfactory morning.

My problem was timing. Although I'd allowed an extra 45 minutes, the traffic and the GPS conspired against me and we arrived in central Milan too late for my viewing 'slot'. For Anthony, the storm last night had broken the gates to get into Monza and the language barrier prevented him from determining an alternative entrance. He could hear the engines but he couldn't get inside.

I was lucky though because I still visited the Castello Sforzesco. Here I was able to view Michelangelo's final unfinished sculpture.

The Rondanini Pietà is a marble sculpture that Michelangelo worked on from the 1550s until the last days of his life, in 1564. It was amazing to see a piece of his work that allows the viewer to see how the sculpture is crafted. The way he captures the human form is truly captivating, especially when seen by one who can only make stick figures from plasticine! How he could sculpt such beautiful luminous pieces from a piece of marble confounds me.

After meeting back up with Anthony we travelled to Verona, where we stopped for lunch before arriving at Chioggia. We decided over dinner that Sottomarina was the Italian 1950s Gold Coast!