The day started well, with our taxi on time and ready to go, but the traffic was horrendous. It took us 45 minutes to travel 10km, but when we eventually made it to the motorway, our speed picked up considerably. All in all, it took 80 minutes until we were dropped off at our destination. As we approached the airport, certain cars were selected at random to have their car boots checked by police. Our taxi was one of those selected, but it did not delay us to much. Luckily, I saw a sign saying that Business Class passengers were to be dropped off at Stop 5 – as this saved us loads of walking. Our driver did haggle a little over the price that we were quoted – he needed an extra 100 lira because of the traffic. I only had a 200 lira note, so he drove away very happy.

I had read that Istanbul is the biggest terminal building under one roof in the world, and while it is impressive it has only two security control areas. So I had prepared Mick for what could be a long walk and a long wait.

But travelling in Business Class, we were pleasantly surprised to be scanned separately and very quickly, and made it to the lounge until we needed to walk to our gate. It was over one kilometre from the lounge to the gate.

Our plane was 20 minutes late to depart, and therefore we arrived into Milan just too late to catch the train (@ 4.02pm) that I had booked months ago (from Milan Central to Turin Porta Nuova).

We collected our bags rather quickly, passed through customs control in record time and headed down to buy a ticket on the Malpensa Express to Milano Centrale – @ €13 euro each. Once in Milano Centrale we had to buy brand new tickets on the next train to Turin (for a much higher fee [€54 each] than I had paid for the ones we didn’t get to use).

Mick was not a happy camper. I had not allowed enough transit time for us to catch the 4.02pm train. He was right.

Now I have made all this sound pretty easy to do – but I need to paint a picture for you. The time – 4.30pm on a Friday, and central station in Milan is packed with people. I’d say, thousands of people. After asking someone where TrenItalia was so we could check the validity of our original ticket, we travelled 2 floor below the actual station and found a very long line of other travellers with issues. The man at the start of the line directing concerned travellers to certain sections of the business took one look at our ticket and said we had to buy another one. Luckily, we worked out how to use the machine (as there was no point in waiting for help), and luckily again that there was a ticket for us both, albeit at more than twice the price of the tickets I’d just thrown in the bin.

I tried to learn some Italian before we came here, and one thing I picked up from the digital displays at the railway station was that there was going to be a strike (sciopero nazionale) this weekend – starting at 9pm on Saturday and ending at 9pm on Sunday. Perhaps that was why there were so many people trying to get help with tickets, and so many more at the station trying to get the heck out of there while they could.

Tickets now in hand, we stood waiting to find out the platform number. With 8 minutes until departure, the Number 5 appeared next to our train and so we started to head out through one of the five gates that scanned tickets for access to the platforms. And so did about 500 others. The train to Genoa was just announced as well, and it was leaving from Platform 6, 3 minutes after ours. We shuffled out, the platform and our train in sight, but the majority of the people were heading to Genoa. I lost sight of Mick for a few minutes, but knew that he knew where to go. It was hard going, but we both made it.

The one-hour, express train trip we eventually caught was wonderful – travelling First Class with a reserved seat and a snack, including a glass of wine, helped to calm us both down. And, the Italian red wine was great – even from a paper cup.

The delay meant our accommodation host in Turin had to organise a different way for us to enter her apartment. Thank goodness for wifi and WhatsApp. We were met by Marco, the building manager, and shown to the apartment where we will base ourselves for the next 4 nights.

One very obvious thing hit me as we walked the 150m from the station to the apartment.

Istanbul had no homeless people or beggars. In the 8 days we were there we certainly saw lots of spruikers – for tourist guides, two-hour boat rides, restaurants and carpet shops etc., but saw no one sleeping rough. Whether that was to do with the majority of people there being of the Muslim faith, which believes that helping others is part of their faith, or the result of the Tourism Police we saw everywhere in the Old City having moved people sleeping rough somewhere else.

I tend to think it was the latter reason.

Anyway, that thought struck me in those 150m we walked to our apartment. There were quite a few people begging, and of particular concern was a group of around 7 men, sitting outside the small supermarket next to our apartment who were aggressively yelling at passersby, including us, demanding money.

We are staying on a very busy and very noisy street – but we like that; at least for a few days. Tomorrow our plan is to explore Torino on foot.