An Evening in Milan: Always Bring an Umbrella

We all have some kind of impression of Milan. After Rome it is probably the city we know best in Italy as Americans, whether that is for its role in fashion or cars. For me Milan was a place I felt like I had to go to, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of time there. I thought a day would be enough, because I thought for sure it wasn’t going to really be my place in Italy. So I planned two nights in Milan; one day to see Milan and one day to do a day trip to Lake Como. Little did I know that one day seeing Milan would turn into 5 hours seeing Milan due to having to change plans in Venice. Even then things didn’t go to plan, so here is how my little time in Milan went.

I had realized a couple days earlier that I had messed up our accommodation in Milan. When booking our airbnbs and hostels, the thing I really wanted was for all of them to be near the train stations to make travel easier since we were jumping around a lot. I found a really nice hostel in Milan, Ostello Bello, and I was super excited about it. It turns out it is not 10 minutes from the central train station, but rather 10 minutes from the closest metro stop. It was a 50 minute walk from the train station. I was so upset about it because we would need to go to the train station for our day trip as well and we didn’t want to use public transportation on this trip. We wanted to walk as much as possible.

Anyway I knew I was not going to be able to drag my heavy suitcase 50 minutes to the hostel and we already had limited time in Milan so I bought us metro tickets. It still sucked though because the metro does not have an elevator or escalator, so I was hot, hungry, and crabby from having to carry my suitcase up and down the stairs. Anyway I was better after a sandwich. It still took us a bit to get to the hostel and check in so even though we arrived in Milan around 3:30 pm, it was closer to 5 pm by the time we actually got to explore.

We walked to the Duomo because we had 5:30 pm tickets to go inside. Once again the cathedrals in Italy amazed me. I didn’t even think much about going inside. I was mostly excited about seeing the outside, because I thought that was what it was most famous for. Turns out I was wrong. The inside was just as amazing. We ended up just hanging out in here for awhile because it was so peaceful. Plus the sun was shining through the stained glass just right that it was lighting up the floor.

Once we left we got our pictures and it began to sprinkle a little bit outside. I didn’t think much of it. It wouldn’t really rain that bad, plus I had things to do, so we walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. It obviously was too expensive of stores for us as it was all designer, but I still wanted to walk through. There was so much to look at up above and on the floor. I thought there was a spot where you were supposed to spin for good luck, but I couldn’t find it.

When we exited it was still sprinkling a little bit, but there was still one more thing I wanted to do: Castello Sforzesco. It wasn’t actually open to go inside because all of the museums are closed in Milan on Mondays which is also a bit of a bummer because I wanted to visit The Last Supper painting at the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, but it wasn’t open either. It worked out though because we had limited time anyway, so we walked to the castle just to see the outside. Here I had the best ice cream of my life. We stopped at the Lindt store for some gelato. I went a little overboard. I got a chocolate and hazelnut covered cone with three flavors: biscotto, hazelnut, and chocolate hazelnut. I also got whip cream on top. I spoiled myself.

We took our ice cream and found a spot to eat outside of the castle. We were halfway through our cones when it started to pour and I mean pour! The rain came down so heavy there was no way to escape it. We tried hiding in a bus stop hut, but there were lots of other people doing the same thing. We finished our ice cream and then we debated about what to do. I thought the best thing to do was to wait it out. I was wearing jeans and sneakers and did not have an umbrella. Sam didn’t have an umbrella either, but she was dressed a bit more appropriately with thin capris and sandals. She thought it was not going to let up, so she was going to walk back. I had two option: take a taxi back or walk with her. I was already wet and I really didn’t want to pay for a taxi, so I sucked it up and completely ruined my sneakers. Oh well, good thing I didn’t buy new shoes for this trip like I wanted to.

After about 15 minutes the rain stopped. I knew it would, because with my month in Italy I figured out that when it rains, it rains a lot, but it doesn’t last long. Its not like Minnesota where when it is a rainy day, it is in fact a rainy day. So the rain stopped and we talked about what to do now. Obviously I was very uncomfortable, but I was not giving up on my evening Milan, so we did some shopping, because I still needed to go to Primark and there wasn’t one close by in Rome, so we went. It is my favorite store by the way. I got a tank top, a dress, and a Milano t-shirt. They have the cutest t-shirts. I also got a few of the things I had forgotten for this trip that have proved to be necessary like face sunblock and an umbrella.

Afterwards we were done. I wasn’t going to push this day any further. We just needed dinner, which we planned to do at the hostel since it had free ingredient to make food, but we took one look at the kitchen and were like “there is no way we are cooking right now,” so we went to McDonald’s next door. I did want to have McDonald’s while in Italy anyway, because I like seeing the different versions of it around the world. I tried a spicy chicken wrap since that was something different. It was ok. On the ranks of my McDonalds I’d put it in the middle. Irish McDonald’s is going to be hard to top. I will say though that the fries were better than the ones at home.

And that was the end of our time exploring Milan. The next night we did decide to walk back from the train station after our day trip so that we could see more of Milan. I was a little bummed we would be leaving the next day. Milan had actually grown on me despite the day nothing going right.

We ate at a pasta place that night, Miscusi, which was really good and quite fun since you order at your tables from your phone and you can also pay from there. I enjoyed my own version of Cacio e Pepe, with some olives, bread, and a lemonade. I was kind of feeling like I wish I had a little more time in Milan. I think Milan has an attractive vibe. Its a nice place to be and I think it would be a really nice place to live, but there isn’t as much for tourists to do here as other Italian cities. I would definitely go back to Milan someday. I didn’t even have a chance to explore the nightlife, which is supposedly really good! Who knows, maybe I will find myself living here someday.

Milan was just a short stop on my grand Italian adventure, but there is still more amazing stops to come! Stay tuned for my day trip to Lake Como and Lake Lugano which went a lot better than Milan!