Italy, at last! We touched down at Milan’s Malpensa Airport, and I made contact with my entire tour group, a wonderful bunch of 9 women and two men. Our Italian tour guide Arianna, escorted us out of the airport – and all of us were surprised that we didn’t have to go through Italian customs. Arianna explained that since our flight came from Denmark, we were already within the EU and thus didn’t need to go through that step.

On the half-hour drive into downtown Milan, I spoke to Arianna about getting the group signed up for a cooking class in Genoa, and with a couple of calls on her cell phone, she set it up! So our day on the Riviera of Liguria will close with a cooking class in Rapollo with a “particular type of man” (I take it to mean a character) named Fausto, who is also a avid cartoonist. He will teach us to cook, then feed us in his restaurant complete with wine, aperitivi and after-dinner drinks, present us with aprons and cookbooks bearing his art. We’re all pretty excited about that!