First of all I would like to apologize for the absence on here. Last week was my first real week back to reality after my summer holiday and it hit me harder than expected and to top it off, I also went to Milan for the weekend. This basically left me with no time and energy to blog, so I decided to take a little break. But I’m back now and I thought I would start off with a blog post about my trip to Milan.

My cousin and I booked a very impromptu little city break trip to Milan two weeks ago. We were both very excited to explore a new city, as we both had never been to Milan before. We knew it was going to be warm there, so we came prepared and brought SPF with us. We left on Friday morning for Milan and we arrived in the city center at around 1 o’clock.

Where we stayed

We started the trip off with going straight to our studio to ditch our suitcases and to put more weather appropriate outfit on. I booked us a studio at Dreams Hotel Residenza Corso Magenta. My brother recommended staying here, and I would definitely recommend staying here too! We had such a lovely and modern studio room that was perfect for us. We had a little kitchen with a seating area and a fairly large bathroom.

The studio was extremely close to the centre of Milan and everything was within walking distance from the studio. It basically was the perfect place to stay at.

Dreams Hotel Residenza Corso Magenta, Corso Magenta 54

Lunch

After we got settled we went to get lunch and wanted to explore the city a bit. From the studio we walked to Naviglio and ended up having lunch at a café called Frankie’s. We both decided on a sandwich and had iced coffees. We were so hungry that we completely forgot to take photos of our food. I thought it was such a lovely meal and I definitely recommend going there if you’re there for a few days.

Frankie’s, Corso di Porta Ticinese 89

Pasta babies

One of the promises we made each other, was to eat all the Italian food we could eat. That’s why we walked 45 minutes for dinner on the first night. Let me tell you, it was so worth it! We could have taken a metro or a tram, but we felt like we had not explored the city as much as we would have liked in the first place, so we decided to walk there. It was hot, I ended up being super sweaty from the walk, but the pasta was the best pasta I ever did eat in my entire life.

Platina was one of those restaurants that I found somewhere online that had really high reviews from other pasta lovers. The pasta definitely did not disappoint one bit, because we devoured this too. Luckily I did manage to get a little iPhone shot of this meal.

Platina, Via Lecco 18

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

We woke up extra early on the second day of our trip. This basically already was our last day there and we still had lots of exploring to do. We started off the day with breakfast at Panini Durini. This was around the corner of our studio and on our way to the Duomo, which was perfect for us. My cousin ate a veggie panini and I ended up going for smashed avocado on toast with some smoked salmon. Both were delicious and we were so happy that we decided to go there for breakfast. It was such a yummy breakfast to start the day with and I definitely think Panini Durini is a cute place to eat breakfast, lunch or even dinner at!



On the second day we decided we had to get lunch somewhere completely different. Like I said, we promised each other to eat lots of Italian food, so initially we were looking for a pizzeria to eat at. The one we eyed up, which was close to the studio, sadly enough wasn’t open. We decided to not walk around for too long to look for something else, because it was too hot to also be hangry. That’s why we decided to just walk across the street to eat at Tutto Bene, Grazie. We had walked past the restaurant quite a few times and thought it looked cute, so we decided to just go for it without checking the menu. We both ended up eating such delicious risottos, which is perfect! That was just another type of Italian food we could cross off our list.

Panini Durini, Corso Magenta 31
Tutto Bene, Grazie!, Corso Magenta 30

Authentic Italian pizzas

For dinner on the last day of our trip we decided to go full on Italian. We wanted to eat pizza at a authentic and typical Italian restaurant. We ended up searching for the best pizzeria for a good hour and ended up at Luna Rossa. We ate way too much as a starter, as we had antipasti before our actual pizza, so we ended up not being able to finish our pizzas.

The pizzas were so great and tasty though, we just couldn’t finish them! We even debated taking them home with us so we could eat them at the airport at 3 in the morning the next day. That wasn’t really an option though. If you’re in the area, definitely go to Luna Rossa for a pizza, We also had our eyes on Momus and Pizzeria Da Zero. Sadly enough we were unable to book a table at either of those places.

Luna Rossa, Via Broletto 26
Momus, Via Arco 1
Pizzeria Da Zero, Via Bernardino Luini 9

Sightseeing

On our first day we did so much walking. We wanted to have lunch at Frankie’s and that was near the Naviglio area. We didn’t really think this through, because while we were walking around the Naviglio area, on the hottest few hours of the day, we weren’t really sure what to do there. The area was beautiful, but most of the places were closed. I would recommend going to see the Naviglio area as it’s just so lovely. Definitely go towards the end of the day, so you can enjoy some of the shops as well as enjoy a bit of an apperetivo at one of the restaurants. I had lots pinned on my google maps, but we completely forgot to go there during that time of the day.

On the second day we visited the Duomo, which was beautiful. We bought fast track tickets online the week before, which meant we were able to immediately walk in and discover the beautiful terraces and the cathedral. I would definitely recommend visiting the Duomo as it’s such a beautiful and impressive building. However, while we were there, there were so many people who were pretty disrespectful towards the church. Some tourists were shouting to each other on the terraces and being quite loud in general, and some people did not check to see what clothing you can’t wear in the cathedral. Women are supposed to wear tops with sleeves and dresses, skirts or shorts that come up to the knee. While we were there we saw so many people who did not wear this, which to me is just so disrespectful and not something that I would do. So if you ever do decided to visit the Duomo, definitely check what clothing requirements they have.



The rest of the day we decided to just stroll around town. We went to Via Torino, the affordable shopping area, up to Via Dante and then walked to the Castello Sforzesco. We didn’t do much shopping, as we just didn’t feel like walking that much.

We walked to the Castello Sforzesco, but we only saw the castle from the outside. We didn’t want to go inside, as we weren’t sure whether it was possible and if it was possible, we didn’t want to be stuck in a big queue. So we just walked through it, and it looked pretty impressive from the outside.

While we were in the area we also decided to stroll around Parco Sempione, which was lovely. There were just so many people enjoying the beautiful sunshine. Others were having picnics with their families. It was lovely to see. We sat down on the grass for a little bit before we continued our walk.

Because it was so hot in Milan we also wanted to go to a museum because we thought it would be so nice to be inside on the hottest moments of the day. We didn’t really feel like going to the museum after all, so we decided not to do that. If we would have gone to the museum, we could have gone to La Triennale di Milano, which looked like a fun museum to go to. We did have a little browse around the shop after we went to the park.

Naviglio, Milan
Duomo, Piazza del Duomo
Via Torino, Milan
Via Dante, Milan
Castello Sforzesco, Piazza Castello
Parco Sempione, Piazza Sempione
La Triennale di Milano, Viale Emilio Alemagna, 6

Ice cream

While we were in Milan we were relatively good with not eating just ice cream with the intense heat. We only ate 2 ice creams in the two days we were there, which I thought was pretty good. On the first day we had ice cream after lunch at Cioccolatitaliani.

On the second day we were so full after dinner, but we had to get ourselves another ice cream. After our pizzas we decided to walk it off for a bit. We walked towards the Duomo and slowly made a detour home. On our way to the studio we found this really cute ice cream place called Gelato Fatto Con Amore. We only went for one ice cream scoop, but really enjoyed this ice cream too.

Cioccolati Italiani, Via Edmondo de Amicis 25,
Gelato Fatto Con Amore, Corso Magenta 30


We ended up having about 36-40 hours in Milan and somehow managed to see so much. It was a bit of a whirlwind trip, but we both enjoyed it so much. This was the first time my cousin and I actually went on a trip without anyone of the family, it was so much fun and I definitely would do it again.

We didn’t get to eat everywhere we pinned on Google Maps, but definitely have tried to eat at and sightsee at as many places as possible.

If you’re ever off to Milan, then definitely check out my Google Maps map from Milan. I pinned lots of different things on there that we would have loved to go to, but there just was not enough time. I hope it’s somewhat useful if you’re off to Milan soon.

This was the last trip I had planned for a little while, but I might just plan myself a little trip somewhere closer to home soon. Next on the agenda is to plan a girls trip with my two cousins. We are planning to go to Lisbon next, so I am very excited for that!