It may be paranoia, or my heightened sense of observation and Holme’s like skills of deduction, but I fear my commentary on our departure from Milan for Como in our previous blog post may have been interpreted by some of our dear readers as a good story; some idle text to fill the initial void of a blog, looking for the creative hook to commence the core of the theme at hand.
Let me assure you, dear reader, these marchers were real and they were LOUD. Like all motorbikes in Italy (which have their exhaust baffles removed for aesthetics) these marchers wanted those within a 500 metre radius to know they were unhappy. No, they wanted you to share their pain – audibly!
The young Sherlock’s amongst our dear readers will have observed the lead banner bearing the ABB logo. This would be the ASEA Brown Boveri company, a Swiss-Swedish multinational corporation headquartered in Zurich operating mainly in robotics, power, heavy electrical equipment and automation technology areas. I can confirm these marching protesters were not robots (due to their principal lack of trailing cables). I would expect these workers were marching and protesting about not having been replaced by robots by this corporate giant. Imagine how much quicker the monumental cathedrals and related structures found in Italy and other places could have been assembled using robots.
CERN and the LHC (Large Hadron Collider)
The LHC at CERN outside Geneva is a particular place I wanted to visit on this trip. CERN has a rigid visitor policy wherein they provide free tours in English and French every day for a limited number of visitors (24). To get on a tour you have to apply via their web site. The rules of engagement for this process are well defined and based on a first come, first serve basis within a very limited time window.
We had tried on multiple days to submit an application only to find the window had closed on the numbers for that day. I’ve stayed up till after midnight, been on-line before 6 am and attempted other combinations trying to secure a tour – all to no avail.
However; I am now pleased to advise that following patient programming of an automation script we have been confirmed on TWO tours at CERN. I may be able to sell one of these tours on eBay given they are as scarce as hen’s teeth.
Christine dearest and that itinerary …
I also wanted to make a comment about the lack of blog updates on this trip compared to our trip to the UK and Ireland in 2016. Dearest Christine, who has arranged our itinerary, has packed our schedule so full of adventures and delicious deviations that it is all I can manage at the end of the day is to copy the day’s photographs onto the backup hard drive before falling into a stupor on the floor at the foot of the bed.
c’est la vie.