Poi dice che uno Malpensa..

Posso confermare quasi tutto quello che i giornalisti di Top Gear dicono nel seguito a proposito dell’aeroporto di Malpensa.
Pasqua scorsa dovevo arrivare rapidamente a Malpensa da Milano, con la macchina con tanto di navigatore. Ero stato in giro per l’Italia, per l’Austria, e mai nessun problema ad orientarmi. Ma Malpensa è un’altra cosa. Traffico e coda pazzesca a parte (tutti i milanesi fanno tutti la stessa cosa alla stessa ora la vigilia di Pasqua?), ho avuto veramente per un po’ l’angoscia che non ce l’avrei fatta ad arrivare neanche in ritardo: credo che sia tra le peggiori e più stupidamente segnalate direzioni del mondo. Perfino qui a Roma sono riusciti a risolvere la situazione. L’aeroporto è fuori Roma, ma c’e’ UNA autostrada, che si chiama Roma-Fiumicino, che fa solo una cosa: porta da Roma a Fiumicino. E ritorno.
The only people who can’t navigate instinctively are women and anyone trying to find Malpensa airport in Milan.
I tried to do this last week and it is impossible. The map quite plainly said we would cross a motorway that we needed to ignore. But this motorway does not exist, so when I crossed the motorway I definitely didn’t need to ignore I thought it was the first one. Quickly, because of the position of the sun and my innate sense of distance and time, I realised my mistake and asked Richard Hammond, who was driving, to turn round and go back the other way.
Almost immediately we happened upon a green autostrada sign which pointed us to Venice and Bologna. Both lovely places. But both in the wrong direction. The sign going the other way wasn’t there.
So then we were in a housing estate, with just 90 minutes to go before our plane was due to leave. Both of us were regretting stopping on the shores of Lake Como earlier that afternoon for a beer. I, especially, was regretting the second and third. And fourth, because it made reading the map so very difficult.
James May was especially regretting my extra beers, partly because he can’t read maps and partly because he was due to host a charity day for sick children the next day. So he had to catch that plane.
Soon, however, thanks to my brilliance, we found the autostrada and joined it. Only to find it was the missing autostrada, which had now miraculously reappeared. So we turned off, and in a temper James broke out his hand-held sat nav system.
This took us to the city centre, which even I, in my semi-sozzled state, knew was wrong. I’ve seen many things in the middle of Milan over the years, including lots of pretty women, many pavement cafes, La Scala, the Duomo and the Leonardo da Vinci museum of science and technology. But I have never seen a large international airport.
This is the problem with sat navs. James and Richard are bright blokes – well, James is – but give them an electronic master and they lose all sense of reason. If the sat nav had ushered them into a river, they’d have gone in. And if it had then said, “You have arrived at your destination”, they’d have got out and tried to check in.
We did finally arrive at Malpensa, by following signs to Como, just 17 minutes before our flight was due to leave. And using smiles instead of boarding passes we caught the plane.
(E’ la prova della meravigliosa Aston V8 Vantage Roadster, a proposito)