My Story of Milan, Italy
We’ve now reached the final part of “Another Italian Trip”, culminating with Milan, Italy. I prefer the Italian spelling and pronunciation, so I will be using “Milano” in this article. This is one of the most popular cities in the world and somehow I felt it had a sort of “overhype” to it.
I was here before as a teenager, spent a couple of hours in the Duomo Piazza and the Vittorio Emanuele Gallery and I remember thinking “there are too many people in this city.”
But this time around, I got to appreciate it a bit more. Here’s how:
First off, you might remember from my previous story about Lake Como that we had to switch our plans because of stormy weather, so of course, we had a stormy day in Milano. The heat was already high in the morning, and the atmosphere thick and heavy with the prospect of rain. Nevertheless, we got ready to go to Piazza del Duomo and despite being only 2 metro stations away, which some other time might have seemed like nothing, we decided to make full use of the Milano public transport. Luckily, we were able to pay contactless with our debit cards.
TIP TIME: In Milano, as in some other European cities, you have to present your metro card(or any other method of payment you have chosen) not only on entering the station but also on exiting it. So make sure you don’t throw it away and have it ready, so as not to cause a “traffic jam”.
Once arriving at the Piazza del Duomo, we took plenty of pictures, noticed the pigeons that were missing from Saint Mark’s Square in Venice, and thought that even though I wasn’t interested in entering the Cathedral, we might go around it to further admire its architecture. The weather had other plans. Some huge droplets started dribbling from the sky and we took refuge in the Vittorio Emanuele Gallery. Soon, the droplets turned into a mass of water flooding the centre.
Rain, rain, go away!
And despite it looking like it might end in a few minutes, the rain lasted more than expected, so we ended up spending some time just wandering around the gallery, waiting for the sun to come out again.
Once the rain settled down enough to let us walk around with an umbrella (yes, it was that bad) we braved through and headed towards Teatro alla Scala, the famous opera house. I’m hoping one day to have the opportunity to see a show there, but for now, I simply wanted to remember my high school choir days, when “Va, pensiero” from “Nabucco” haunted us for 2 years straight, so much that I still remember the lyrics.
A pleasant surprise
But, the main attraction of the day was the Castello Sforzesco (Sforzesco Castle) which I did not know existed, and once I found out about it I HAD to see it. I was not sorry. From most Italian attractions this was one by far the best in terms of value for money.
We paid, if I remember correctly, 5 euros each and had access to all museums and exhibits. We got to see lots of art, both Antique and new, decorative art, musical instruments, weaponry…you name it – it was there.
As we exhausted all exhibits and of course, got tired in the process, we slowly made our way out in search of food, but also made some shop-stops along the way. We made a loop and came back to Piazza del Duomo where we got some sunny pictures too.
The day before we’d noticed a cat cafe nearby our hotel so we decided to go there. Despite the allure of the place, we didn’t receive a very warm welcome from the staff and somehow, by the time we got seated we were both feeling quite uncomfortable and decided to leave, sad that we didn’t get to say “hello” to any of the cats.
Even closer to the hotel, across the road, we found a restaurant with a terrace where they had a nice offer for “business lunch”, where for about 12 euro, you could choose a first and second course and also get coffee and water. The name of the restaurant is “L’Antro della Sibilla” and of course they had a whole menu besides the lunch one, so you could order “à la carte” as well.
The food was good. I had spaghetti with tomatoes, olives, and capers and if I could get that dish every day (without me cooking it) I’d be oh, so happy.
After this big late lunch and so many days of walking, we retired to our hotel room for rest and got ready to go home the following day.
On that final day, there wasn’t much left for us to do. After breakfast, we saw a bit more of the Milano Centrale train station, which is quite an impressive building, and then hopped on the bus to Bergamo Orio al Serio Airport, which took about one hour to get there and the ticket cost was about 8 or 10 euro.
The end
And that concludes “Another Italian Trip”. I hope you enjoyed these stories and got some inspiration for future travels or perhaps went down memory lane in one of your past trips. Let me know which part was your favourite in the comments: Verona, Venezia, Lake Garda, Lake Como, or Milano?
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