The past two days have been an epic adventure in travel. We made it to the Dresden airport, checked into our flights and found out we had to check our carry on bags. Down 150 more euros we found our gate, and discovered that we really hadn’t needed to check our bags after all: bummer. After chilling at the airport for a couple of hours we caught our flight to Cologne without issue. Our flight connecting flight to Milan, however, was delayed for two hours. Two somewhat crummy cappuccinos (complements of Germanwings) and a couple of Castle episodes later (yeah Amazon Kindle!), we finally made it into the air and eventually arrived at Milano-Malpensa around 9:30 PM. Unfortunately, the airport is not actually in Milan but an hour away by bus or train (Did I mention we were quite hot and tired by this point?) Fortunately, Rick Steves had clear directions about navigating to the train platforms and how to pick up our tickets at the convenient ticket kiosk along the way. What he failed to mention as that the kiosk no longer exists, and that the ticket machine is impossible to understand even if you can figure out how to switch it to English. After several aborted attempts at buying tickets, we finally bumbled through the menus on a machine, found our train and an hour later we were actually in Milan. From there it was a short hike to our hotel through some charming, cobbled Italian Streets. The charm was somewhat dampened by the oppressive heat (even at 11 PM), the clouds of mosquitos, and the weight of our luggage bouncing across the cobbles, but we charged on. Fortunately, the tech-savvy Steven had cached a map of Milan on his phone (I am so sorry Steven for bugging you for messing with your phone, you were right: it was not easy to navigate as Rick had led me to believe). The hotel owner spoke no English and when he asked what time we would be leaving could not understand that we were taking a train not a plane. After much confusion, repetition, pointing, writing, and putting our bags in our room we were able to communicate during the second try that we would be taking the 5:18am train. He graciously called us a cab for the next morning and told us to be in the lobby at 4:45 and not earlier because he wanted his sleep. By the time we made it to our room it was close to midnight. Mr. Steves describes this place as “a simple 30-room hotel with overstuffed little living rooms, an inviting breakfast room, and all the amenities” that is “tucked away on a quiet side street just off vibrant Via Dante.” All I can say Rick Steves is EPIC FAIL. Lying on a stone slab after a rough day of travel Steven and I tried unsuccessfully to think of a worse hotel we have stayed in; this place topped the list. The smell was indescribable – a combination of mothballs, mildew, and decay. The air conditioner did not work as I found out when I turned it on and soaked Steven with stagnant water that spilled out of the unit awkwardly located near the ceiling, so I tried to open the window to find that there were wooden slats covering the opening. Steven literally did not fit in the shower and had to open the door to turn around. The last words I heard from Steven as I was falling asleep was “I hope this room doesn’t kill me in my sleep.” Amazingly we both woke up at 4am, packed up our stuff, made it to the lobby at 4:45 exactly to find the owner asleep on the couch and the taxi waiting outside. We ended up having to wake the owner to let us out of the hotel and took the taxi to the train station. After another confusing round at the ticket machine we purchased out tickets and made it on our train. We had a change over in the town of Novaro. Unfortunately in Novaro our next train was cancelled leaving us stranded and trying to figure out buses.  Now comes the Rick Steves kudos; the Italian Survival Phrases page of his book was a life-safer. The only change I would suggest is taking out the “Parla inglese? PAR-lah een-GLAY-zay Do you speak English?” and instead just changing the title of the page to “Italian Survival Phrases- You’ll Need Them No One Here Speaks English.” So we made it to Orta Miassino hiked down a hill and to the hotel.