The alarm went off at 6 a.m. We dragged ourselves out of bed, having had a rather fitful night’s sleep in an albeit comfortable bed.

We had EasyJet Plus status, and the bag drop was, for once, a piece of cake.

Next, Security. Took a while to get through, but neither of us got our bags further investigated. Result.

Grabbed a coffee/tea and something to eat at a completely rip-off price at Pret, then headed for the gate, which was miles away.

Very crowded gate, but Speedy Boarding got us through to our seats relatively quickly, having pre-booked extra legroom seats. Although, there wasn’t that much extra legroom 😒

However, there was then a long wait – something to do with the infernal French air traffic controllers – and the plane eventually took off an hour late.

A nice smooth flight eventuated, and we landed at Milan Malpensa Airport about an hour and three-quarters later in glorious sunshine.

It took about half an hour for the bags to come off the carousel, but from there it was straightforward. We met Matt, one of the reps, who directed us to a coach. An hour later,  we were in the lobby of the Grand Hotel Bristol.

Check-in was swift and efficient. We have a junior suite with a balcony, and the room really does smack of a different era.

View from the balcony. It’d be better if it wasn’t so hazy…… (bit of a Walker family in-joke, that).

Temperature in the high twenties and fairly humid.

We are based here for the whole week, so we had the luxury of being able to unpack completely.

The room has a serious drawback in that it’s not equipped for the modern digital world. Yes, there is free WiFi, but only one socket available for all our electronics. What on earth are we going to do??

Also, the shower looks a bit dodgy…… Time will tell.

We were both a bit knackered from the early start, so what more could we do but sit on the balcony with a camomile tea (Jean) and a beer (me). Nice.

We recovered sufficiently to take a short walk around the grounds. This really is a humungous hotel and quite spectacular in places.

Jean essayed the shower, and perhaps it isn’t as dodgy as originally thought. We’ll see…..

Dinner next – we’re on half-board terms here. Four courses, starting at around 7.15 p.m. Reasonably tasty, but far too much food, with an indifferent bottle of the house white. We didn’t finish until 9 p.m., feeling really full. Not ideal, but a post-prandial G&T helped……

We chatted to a number of other couples over dinner, and two of them had had troubles with their room, so had decided to move. Not great optics for a supposedly up-market hotel.

Tomorrow is a visit to Lake Orta. I’ll let you know how that went. If you’re interested.