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"On a hot July morning, I traveled to Biasca, Switzerland, about two hours north of Milan, Italy"

Ok, sorry for the off topic, but this annoys me to no end.

Two hours by plane is about 1400 miles, by car about 120 miles, by bicycle about 25 miles, by foot maybe 6 miles, so why not give distance by miles or km? Even if we are talking by car, then how do you know there are no traffic jams on the way, or bad weather?

</please ignore rant>

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Not sure about where you are from, but in Canada distances are routinely given in hours or minutes, and it always means by car unless it is specified. As in, "Toronto to Ottawa is around five hours, or an hour by plane."

And that's the problem, tell me 10 miles and it will always be 10 miles. Where I live, in a rapidly growing city, 15 years ago it would take 15 minutes to downtown from my house, now it takes 25 or 30. It's the same distance but traffic has increased significantly in a short number of years.

In my experience, hours of distance always means "by car under typical traffic/weather conditions" unless otherwise specified.

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