Travelling from Northern Italy to Australia we find that Thai Airways is not only convenient and has an excellent service but has the natural advantage for us, and particularly Francesca, that it passes through Thailand.

Normally, when we are only away for a few days, we leave our car at one of the long term parking facilities near Malpensa. Two months of parking would be ridiculously expensive so we opted for a taxi from Lecco to take us to, and later collect us from, Malpensa. It should be added that we were travelling with about 25 kilos of luggage each due to the time we would be away and the many changes of season we expected to face. That is to say: rainy season in Japan and Thailand, winter in Southern Australia, hot and dry in Northern Australia and temperate at Brisbane in Southern Queensland. Fortunately Thai allows an extra 10 lilos of luggage for frequent flyers! We certainly would need it on our return trip.

The flight to Bangkok was uneventful but somewhat tiring so we opted for an upgrade to Business Class for the Tokyo leg. The cost of an upgrade, if seats are available, costs much less than booking Business in the first place so it is well worth investigating. Unfortunately the Thai ticketing counter at Suvarnabhumi Bangkok Airport is outside the security area and we had a certain amount of stress negotiating the long queue to re-enter the “secure” area. After all that Business Class in this leg was something of a disappointment as we found ourselves on an older Jumbo (747) Jet. At least we had good leg room and a more comfortable seat, not to mention a better level of service.

We arrived at Narita at in the afternoon and after negotiating the storage of one bag and the purchase of bus tickets to take us to the hotel we settled down to wait for the bus. In due course we arrived at the Tokyo Sheraton Miyako Hotel in the early evening and after an excellent light meal in a nearby little restaurant we settled down for a good night’s sleep.

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