If you are like fashion, you absolutely have to have a trip to Milan on your bucket list. There’s one street almost dedicated to Dolce & Gabbana and the family of high end Italian designers and there’s no shortage of individual stores like Malloni and of course the high street stores including H&M and a giant Zara.
Although you wont feel like you are in one of the fashion capitals of the world. There aren’t armies of models strutting the streets and no shoots taking place randomly as one would expect. Milan is discreet and allows tourism to have its own place and space.
The duomo of course is a must see – in fact – we stayed at The Straf Hotel which is literally 100m fro the side wall and less than that from Rinascente and H&M.
We went for Black Friday – unintentioanlly – but now we know how the city celebrates it, may plan another visit next year. On Black Friday itself, stores have massive discounts and stay ope to late, and I mean late. Rinascente til 1am. Unfortunately, the discounts don’t last in all stores all weekend, so arrive Thursday, go crazy shopping Friday and do culture vulture stuff on the Saturday.
We had time to eat at the D&G Bistrot, which, I must say was a tad disappointing. The food is good and the service too, but you kind of expect something more in your face, more in line with the brand. The in your face was there in the guise of a table of Russians who were so horrid tot he waitress, she cried as they left the restaurant.
We had booked tickets too for La Scala, but don’t do what we did and buy them through BVEvents. The company charged us two and half times the face value of the tickets which we did not realise till the tickets were in had (which was on arrival at the hotel) with the excuse that they offer reduced hotel accommodation in the deal. This is not something you are made aware of when buying tickets – so PLEASE don’t fall for the same scam. They would not budge when questioned about it.
La Scala itself is worth the trip though they have a problem with temperature – we were baking hot – and they have these awful screens on the back of the seats to translate the opera. Now, this might be great to assist newbies, but really the screens are too bright.
The best meal we had was actually at the airport. Seriously, I’d fly to Milan just to eat there again. Michelangelo’s overlooks the tarmac but the food makes you feel like you are in first class.
There tonnes of culture, beautiful architecture, parks and patisseries to while away any free time. But 48 hours was plenty having been there a couple of times before.
Direct flights are available from Malta too.
