Day 3 took us over San Bernardino/Splugen Pass into Milan where we met my father. I ran with a new M6 that we caught near Memmingen for about 50 km. It was a beautiful medium blue and sounded hot when he got on it. I hit a max of 130, he probably got to 140 a couple of times, but we were always slowed by traffic.

We got off the 'bahn at Lindau(Austrian border) and drove surface streets through Bregenz all the way to the CH border. We did this for 2 reasons...1.)Via Michelin's instructions on how to jog west to the 'Splugen' autobahn are dead wrong-we found this out last year and wasted an hour of utter frustration 2.)No reason to pay the Austrian 'bahn vignette since we only needed to drive 12 miles in Austria to the Swiss border. The surface streets are not confusing... highly recommended if you're going to Milan/Como area. If you have NAV, the directions may be easy but why pay for a vignette?

Arrived in Milan 7pm. What a difficult city to drive in!!!!!!!!! Avoid it if at all possible. Massive number of ill marked/not marked tiny one-way streets with trolleys (on tracks) that appeared to be interacting with traffic. I still have no idea if I was allowed to drive down the tracks like I was seemingly forced to because of construction lane closures. I really got pissed because it was impossible to follow any directions here and very, very confusing and confining. I felt like I was going nuckin' futs. NAV would not really have helped since there were so many mini 'construction' lane closures. The Milanese should really spend a little less on fashion and more on good streets and signage.

My dad and I went out to Monza for F1 practice on Friday. I absolutely dig F1, but what a pain in the ass this was as well. Train from Stazione Centrale was very hot, poorly ventilated and took about 25 minutes to Monza. Then you get on a shuttle bus which lacks ventilation entirely and slog through goofy traffic revisions-30 long minutes to go probably 3 miles. Then the bus lets you off just inside a massive park. You walk literally 2+ miles and arrive at the gates to the track. I have no idea why the bus did not drive us up there. The road was 20 feet wide and there was not a vehicle on it all the way to the entrance. Practice tickets are like 40 Euros, they don't take credit cards. Sat in the main grandstand (nice concrete benches!) for practice 1 then Variante Ascari (spectacular L-R-L kink) for Practice 2. I'm glad I can say that I've been there because it's a massively historied, fast track. Indianapolis absolutely kills it in terms of comfort and convenience though. No cool signs to take pictures of really either, sorry. All I have is on video.

The best thing in Milan that I saw was the Duomo area and the Galleria next door all lit up at night. The third picture is a crappy blurry one of the inside of the Galleria, but the color, height and contrast and light in there at night are unreal!