We spent quite a while researching flights, and after hours of checking various routes on Skyscanner and Google Flights found that Bangkok via Milan and Cairo worked out the cheapest option! Rather than having a very long period of flights and time at airports, we decided to have brief 2-3 night stopovers in both Milan and Egypt.
Thursday 29th September 2022 – London to Milan
We didn’t have the most successful start to our trip. The plane was an hour late arriving, and when we finally boarded we ended up sitting on the plane for another 3 hours before it finally took off (by this point we were very glad we had a Wetherspoons breakfast at the airport!). Apparently air traffic control strikes made it very difficult to get a take off slot after our original one had been missed.
Our arrival in Milan coincided with the start of a huge thunderstorm. We’d taken the shuttle bus from Bergamo airport to Milan Central station, and the short walk from the bus stop to the metro left us soaked through! When we got to our Airbnb we had to unpack everything and hang our clothes out to dry as everything in our rucksacks was slightly damp. The lesson learnt there is to get some kind of waterproof lining or cover for our bags!
By now it was getting fairly late and as it was still raining we went to the closest place for dinner, a small restaurant called Pausa https://pausa.com
Luckily for us, it happened to do very tasty and reasonably priced pizzas. In fact, they were so nice we ordered a 3rd pizza to take back to our Airbnb (along with a bottle of wine) and share. It had been a long day and we’d not eaten since breakfast in the airport.
Friday 30th September 2022 – day in Milan
Our first job in the morning was to go to an outdoor store and buy some Nikwax spray to waterproof our bags and coats. Hopefully it’ll prevent them getting soaked in torrential rain again!
It was a bit of a wet, slightly miserable day and we were feeling quite tired so decided to have a relatively lazy day. We took a walk down to see the Doumo Cathedral, which was pretty impressive even in the wet weather
By the time we’d seen the cathedral it was getting close to lunch so we decided to grab a bite to eat at the neighbouring Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. I’m not usually a fan of shopping centres, but this one was definitely quite impressive.
I was slightly dubious about eating here, as it’s obviously very touristy but the food was actually very good. It was more expensive (50 euro for a main plus drink for 2 people) but the ambiance and atmosphere made it worthwhile.
We had a little wander around the shopping centre before stumbling across the Leonardo da Vinci museum.
We had a look around the Leonardo da Vinci museum. This museum contains models of several of da Vinci’s impressive inventions (although disappointingly none of them moved)
After the museum, we wandered back to our Airbnb and bought some ice cream on the way. Whenever we’re away, we always hunt out banana ice cream as it’s surprisingly rare in the Uk. So it was satisfying to find some so close to where we staying (it was very good ice cream as well!)
Early evening, we took a walk to the Naviglio district of Milan, where there are a lot of nice bars and restaurants
Quite a lot of the bars were doing all you can eat buffets with a drink for about 13 euros per person. However we decided to give these a miss and instead went to Pigato for a pre-dinner aperitivo.
After our drinks, we headed slightly away from the waterfront and had dinner at the excellent value La Magolfa & Go. The food here was delicious and it was great value – our total bill was 30 euros for a ham and porcini pizza, a large focaccia with anchovies, a bottle of wine, and a tiramisu.
Saturday 1st October 2022 – our second full day in Milan
After another relatively slow and lazy start to the day, we headed out and came across some ruins – apparently it was the ruins of the old imperial palace, but it was quite cool and slightly random to find them in the middle of an otherwise built up area.
We then enjoyed an early lunch at Pasto, a lovely little restaurant that specialises in handmade pasta. I must say, the pasta was amazing and very reasonably priced.
After lunch, we walked up to the Castello Sforzesco and had a wander around.
We happened to stumble across a lovely farmers market in the castle grounds, and whiled away a bit of time sampling a range of Italian delicacies.
We managed to sign up to a free wine tasting session at the farmers market, so spent an hour relaxing in the park before it began. We didn’t understand a huge amount (it was all in Italian!) but did enjoy the interesting selection of wines, including an unusual sparkling red.
After the wine tasting, we walked back to the cathedral to enjoy an aperitivo on the Aperol Terrazzo overlooking the Duomo.
We tried to get dinner in a local pizza place, but unfortunately it was fully booked all night. Instead we got a takeaway, which actually worked out quite well as we happened to have a bottle of wine at the Airbnb and also had packing etc to get done.
Our time in Milan went extremely quick, although we fitted in a lot of pizza and wine! Tomorrow on to our next stop, Cairo.
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 