It’s tricky, travelling with family members whom you see infrequently and who haven’t had a chance to get used to your habits and preferences and vice versa. Some of us have a planned approach to travel, that is, read guides, make lists of things to do each day, consciously decide in favour of A and against B because time is limited - and others randomly pick a town, ramble around its streets, do a bit of shopping, eat at a restaurant, and declare the place sufficiently acquainted with.
My two sisters are of the latter school of thought; I am of the former. (My niece, who will be reading this, mixes the two approaches, or else she was humouring me half the time.)
Things already got complicated in our group chat, before anyone set foot in Lombardy. Here’s a typical conversation:
Me: I’ve consulted three guides to Milan and I’m happy to synthesize the best of the best and create the agenda for a couple of days for anyone interested, how about it?
Sister 1: Why are you reading books when everything is online? A lot of it is probably outdated too.
Sister 2: We must go to Como, I hear it’s unmissable.
And it continued in this vein.