Re: How can I get to Museo Storico

["Bob & Mary Holmström" <holmstro@domain.elided>]

Tim,

It is possible (but not easy!) to get to Museo Storico by public
transportation - My wife and I did it last May.

We asked for instructions at the tourist information office near the Milan
Cathedral, they speak excellent English and were very helpful.  You can
either take a bus or taxi.  We used some of both and here is what happened:

We went to the taxi stand near the cathedral and after talking to about 10
drivers we finally found one who would take us there but he didn't know
where it was and he had to ask other cab drivers for instructions.  They
told him to just drive to Arese and ask there.  It is about a 45 minute
drive to Arese.  We negotiated a price for the ride before entering the
taxi - it turns out the reason the drivers don't want to go there is that
there is no chance of getting someone to ride back.  If you speak Italian,
you may be able to negotiate a reasonable fare for the taxi to wait - we let
the taxi go.  The one way fare was approximately $25. Make sure that you get
the driver to drop you near the museum, the Alfa Romeo complex is huge for
someone on foot.

As others have said, the museum is buried inside what appears to be an
office building.  We were let in by the cleaning lady and had free roam of
the place for several hours and did not see a single other visitor.

When it came time to leave, we went back to the guard station and tried to
get him to call a taxi for us but failed because our Italian was not good
enough.  We finally got instructions on how to take the bus.  Unfortunately,
the bus stop was at the other end of the Alfa Romeo complex, and we couldn't
walk through it, we had to walk around it.  About two miles on a busy
highway with no shoulder or sidewalk, in the pouring rain!  Fortunately we
had raincoats with us. We had to time our sprints along the side of the road
so as to not get sprayed by the trucks as they went buy.  In order to ride a
bus in Milan, you need bus tokens which are not sold on the bus - you have
to buy them at a newsstand - which was another mile down the highway.  We
got to the newsstand 15 seconds before it closed.

One highlight of this walk, was seeing two heavily camouflaged 166s exiting
from one of the back gate.

Eventually the bus came, and we had an uneventful ride back into Milan.

My wife is not a "car person" but somehow she puts up with my interest -
this was a real test however!

I hope you have a bit better luck than we did - It is worth seeing the
museum, it is fantastic - almost a sensory overload.

Bob

P.S. The new Zagato office is also somewhere in Arese - perhaps someone else
on the list knows the location.

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