A Weekend in Milan

Milan - the city of Fashion, with some of the most desirable and well-known designer brand stores one next to another. When you get to the city you get a vibe of a busy life, with crowds of people all over the city. The buildings have kept their ancient attribute and are definitely one of Milan's greatest characteristics.

How to get to the city center?

From the Malpensa Airport,  there is a buy-ticket area where you can get your train tickets to your destination. We went to Milano Centrale railway station and then we walked about 2 km to the place that we were renting. There is about 3km from Milano centrale to Duomo di Milano – which kind of represents the central point of Milan. 

Let me take you through the places that Milan is famous for and find out in the end whether 3 days in Milan was enough for us.

Known as the 2nd largest cathedral in the world, its construction took 5 centuries to build. Its great size was a big surprise when we arrived, it appears to be 157 meters high. Anywhere you look you see a statue, 3500 of which the entire building is covered in. Moreover, all these statues have been created by different artists coming from different centuries.

If you plan to visit the inside of the Duomo there are more options that you can choose from: the cathedral, the rooftop, the archeological area, and the Duomo museum. You can choose to visit all of them with a price from 15 to 20 euros, the 5 euros difference being for an escalator to get you up to the rooftop. Overall, the prices vary from 5 to 20 euros depending on the places you want to visit.

You are going to need your tickets for the entire period of your visit in order to present them for every place you decide to go to.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is surely not a typical mall. It is one of the most ancient malls in the world which contains mostly designer brands such as Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and some local restaurants.

Also, for the Christmas season, for the past few years, Swarovski used to decorate the Christmas tree that shows in the center of the gallery.

Considered as one of the most important museums of science and technology in the world, it is definitely worth visiting. It is an immense museum that contains a large collection of exhibits on energy, transport, astronomy, astrophysics, etc. 

The most important side of it is da Vinci’s Gallery where a lot of wood machinery and models based on Leonardo’s projects are exhibited. Other than that, what you can find there are several areas that present the navigation theme both maritime and aircraft – civilian and military. Also, there is an ancient railway station, which very well transmits the vibe of the past.

A very exciting exhibit is a real Moon rock collected by the astronauts of Apollo 17 in 1972, as well as the first computer in history called Programma 101.

Find out about more exhibits here.

The church is famous for preserving in its refectory one of the greatest and most well-known masterpieces in the world - Leonardo Da Vinci's fresco of “The Last Supper”.  The fresco survived the war, after a bomb attack, therefore, it is now still an active symbol of art, available at “Museo del Cenacolo Veniciano”.

What you need to know before going there is that the visit lasts 15 minutes with a maximum of 33 people at a time.

The availability of tickets is very limited, so prepare yourself to make a reservation a few weeks prior to visiting. I recommend checking the ticket availability even a month or two before since in some seasons it is quite populated with tourists.

A giant castle which is way bigger in reality than in pictures. The access is free within the fortress’ limits – the courtyard. A charge of 15 euros is imposed if there is a desire to visit the 12 museums that the castle hosts. The most important of them all being Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, which exposes da Vinci’s Codex Trivulzianus manuscript, Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà, Trivulzio Madonna by Andrea Mantegna etc.

Check out this video to find out what the inside of the museums looks like.

La Scala is one of the most famous opera houses in the world and its grandeur leaves you speacheless. 

The theatre museum contains several pieces related to the world of opera including several paintings, busts and of course, costumes.

San Bernardino alle Ossa is a church that transmits quite sinister vibes due to its decorations, which mainly consists of human bones and skulls. It is not a place for anyone, but it can definitely be a fascinating experience for some art enthusiasts.

Food

Overall, we tried food in 4 restaurants and one cafe and we ordered pizza, pasta, sushi, and breakfast. We were very excited to try out pizza and pasta from Italy. Panini Durini is the cafe where we had our breakfast, the chocolate croissants were the best I have ever tried. However, the reality didn't meet our expectations. We weren't impressed with the food in any of the other restaurants, the prices being about 12-16 euros for pizza, 15-20euros for pasta, and about 50-60euros for 32 sushi rolls. Nevertheless, I still believe there are some good places to eat out there and there have actually been some places that we wanted to visit but didn't manage to. Check out the ideas below and see which ones these are. 

NOTE: All restaurants in Italy, impose a 2-3 euros tax automatically introduced in the receipt. It is called “coperto” which is basically a tip for them or as they call it - for having a table arranged. 

Rent 

When browsing for rent, we noticed that the prices are quite high. We paid 627euros for 3 people for 3 days. The apartment looked really nice at first, however, it wasn't the one from the pictures which was supposed to have 2 rooms (for 3 people) instead we got a one-room apartment and a mattress for the 3rd person and all the caring products for 2 people only. To make the story short, Italians aren't very caring about their customers when it comes to providing services, at least in our case. 

Tip: I highly recommend finding a place to rent in the city center. It will help you get the most out of your trip, with the most important places to visit next to you.

Yes and No. 

We managed to see what we planned except for some restaurants that we wanted to visit, but as in any other place, there is always something left to see no matter how long your stay is. 

Milan is definitely not a one-time visit city. I would undoubtedly visit Milan again and before doing that I would consider planning my entire trip beforehand including restaurants, museums, and even stores. If I just knew how easy that would have been if I created a Lentii trip list it would have saved plenty of time on the actual trip.