We aren’t big on setting high expectations towards travel destinations, so when we planned our stay in Milan, we truly didn’t think too much of it. We considered the short drive after staying at Lake Como the night before and how we would spend two nights in a funky hotel. The plan was to see the cathedral, the shopping mall and for us to enjoy some good food. That’s all there was to it.
So what could have gone wrong and why is it that we wholeheartedly didn’t enjoy our time in this city? If we have to describe our experience in one word, it’s ‘disappointing’.
And if you would like to find out why we thought Milan was one of the most neglected cities we have ever been to, be our guest and read on. Word of caution: This isn’t a blog about the best places to eat or get a drink, rather the bits one could do to avoid some of the disappointment we had to encounter.
Visiting Milan was part of our road trip to France and Italy, so we were there in late August which is an unusually quiet time when the city stands still and most residents are on holiday. This could account for some of the points below, but we would like to argue that this makes matters even worse as that means the only time you would want to visit Milan, is when the tourists flood in or brands launch new collections at the infamous Milan Fashion Week.
So then, here are the three tips:
- What we wish we had known before travelling (just below)
- Which places were worth visiting
- Things we had to watch out for to stay safe
1. What we wish we had known before travelling to Milan
Looking back, there are a few things we could have done differently to enjoy our stay more. Namely, we could have chosen a better hotel, had brought an electric kettle with us or done more research on where to eat and by no means, wasted time on wandering around trying to find a cosy place where to have a good meal. But then again, if we had, we wouldn’t be writing this blog for you. So before coming to Milan, consider these bits of advice.
Booking a hotel on the edge of the city isn’t a great idea
When booking hotels for our road trip, we set a strict budget of spending no more than €80 for a double room per night. That may seem like a generous amount, however, with the city tax (€10 per person/per night in Milan), parking and often excluded breakfast options, we didn’t have that much to choose from and something would have to give way. Our hotel, Hotel Da Vinci was quite far – the walk to the city centre took 1 hour and 40 minutes one-way. For some reason, I thought it was 30 minutes, but then I most likely didn’t change the ‘mode of transport’ on Google Maps from driving to walking. Oops.
We wouldn’t usually take such a long walk, but we wanted to explore what Milan is like along with its suburbs. And what surprised us the most was that two-thirds of all shops were closed in the middle of a day on a Tuesday. That brings us, to the next point.
Walking through the suburbs or China Town is unlikely to be a great experience
On the first evening and after a quick snack, we decided to go for a walk. In a way, you could tell that Milan used to be a busy city surrounded by a lot of ‘buzz’. The size of the place, as well as the number of shops and restaurants, amounted to it, but hardly anything was open.
We appreciate that the end of August is considered to be the holiday season for most Italians. But even though the shops were closed, the city of Milan was quite dirty and neglected.
There was a lot of trash on the streets. To add to that, graffiti on the walls and not the nice kind that you want your picture taken with. Just sprays of letters in black and blue everywhere with half-broken shop fronts, bolted windows and doors. Honestly, it felt like walking through a very rough neighbourhood.
There was a spot that looked so unsafe, I felt uncomfortable holding the camera or having a conversation out loud. Marching forward, I tried to distract myself from the thoughts I was having while we were getting over that patch. It was far from the feeling you would want to have when you are on a stress-free, two-week holiday with your partner.
The centre of any city can create an unrealistic perception about a country, especially if you stick to visiting the main sights. So we love to explore suburban areas.
As Oskar put it in our travel vlog for Day 4 (see the embedded video at the end), “we like to explore everything about a city”. This doesn’t end with the main tourist attractions in the city centre. Walking around the suburbs gives us a good perspective on what the living in a city really is like. We even have a habit to discuss whether a city or country is welcoming enough for us to stay there for longer than a few nights. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the ‘vibe’ in Milan until after we finished filming our travel vlog and saw the Sforza castle in the evening (more on this lovely location below).
Needless to say, we didn’t walk long distances on our second day in Milan, we took the metro, but even there, we had some complications.
Having water and food on you at all times is crucial
Visiting Milan (or Italy) during the hot summer months? Always carry a few water bottles with you. Hotels and bars will charge you €2 to €3 for one tiny 500ml bottle and you will finish it pretty quickly. This advice may seem basic, but once it gets to it, you will be thankful to have remembered to bring water with you.
Same applies to snacks that keep you energised throughout the day. We were finding it hard to find a welcoming place that wasn’t too expensive and where food looked appetising. Sure, you can go on TripAdvisor and look at the reviews (something we did later on in our road trip).
But, if you are like us and are ‘flying blind’, have some fruit and other dry snacks on you. Supermarkets in Italy are quite well priced – we restocked our supplies at the Carrefour Market, only a few minutes away from the cathedral. Here we bought our dinner, cocktail ingredients and had a lovely dinner at the hotel.
We didn’t get so wise from thin air though, here’s a little story of our adventures on the first day.
Exhausted after driving long distances from the previous days, we thought we would love to go for a walk around Milan and have a nice dinner. We walked for an hour and a half until we finally found a place where to rest our feet in Sempione Park.
The park was quite lively, there were a lot of people running, playing musical instruments and enjoying the warm evening. Once we got to Bar Bianco, we were unpleasantly surprised by the prices – a pint of beer cost €12 and snacks were far from appetising. We thought to ourselves, well this isn’t exactly Knightsbridge or the Shard in London, but hey.
We were tired so we decided to go for it. At first, we ordered the drink at the bar and the staff member asked if we wanted to be served at the table. We waited for about 15 minutes before a server would pass by our table by mistake asking if we wanted to order anything. The server approached us at the same time as Oskar was recording me and we were about to leave (hence why you can see how dissatisfied I can be in the vlog). We complained a little and got the beer shortly after, even with a small discount. While waiting, we found out that the bar had quite a few negative reviews and charged €1 for each drink to be delivered to the table.
As a general rule, most places in Italian cities close at 7:30 pm, so we weren’t in much luck. Running out of options, we thought we could get a taxi to the hotel. Then, we decided to put the navigation to the closest McDonalds restaurant and if we did find something along the way that would seem inviting, we would go for it. Yup, we love to gamify our travels!
We didn’t find anything we fancied. Pause. Yes, we did end up dining at McDonalds on our holiday in Italy. We had a few burgers, fries, two beers and paid €16 for the whole meal. Almost the price of one pint at that bar! The fast-food restaurant was overlooking the Milan cathedral. The view was great and with our bellies full, we felt like ourselves again. Shortly after, we did some research and learned that we could go back to the hotel by metro – being money conscious made us feel pretty good.
2. Which places were worth visiting in Milan
It would be unfair if we said that there wasn’t anything good about Milan. Sure, there are a handful of beautiful places to see. An iconic cathedral, the place where the elite went shopping in the 19th century, a spooky castle and the lovely bar that surprised us with its customer service. Dive in.
The infamous Milan Cathedral – Duomo di Milano
After a 20-minute train ride on the metro from our hotel, we surfaced above the Duomo station and were met by the third largest cathedral in the world, Duomo di Milano. The cathedral is a masterpiece of gothic architecture in light marble that took nearly six centuries to complete.
We were most impressed by the gates which were adorned with unique sculptures from the very bottom to the very top.
It was a surprise even to Oskar as he usually doesn’t get excited about culture or architecture. We both stopped for a while to admire the unique sculptures that adorned the gates. The cathedral is truly the centrepiece of Milan that truly stands out above all else.
Standing right next to the cathedral but facing towards the central facade, on your right, you will notice an arch made from marble with a large glass globe ceiling. We missed that this, in fact, was the shopping mall we were looking at the first time around. Only after a short walk around the shopping area, we realised that the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, is rather small.
The oldest shopping mall in the world – The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
The beautiful marble floors, pastel-coloured walls, the stunning paintings and of course, all the natural light coming from the ceiling makes for one architectural wonder, however, that’s where the amazement ended for us.
While the central part of the shopping mall looked nice, its current state failed to leave a great impression. Maybe it’s because there were homeless people in the middle of it asking for money. Maybe it’s the fact that all four restaurants looked exactly the same. There was nothing extraordinarily special about the retail shops either. Maybe London has spoiled us with Harrods and Selfridges so we were hoping to see a similar display.
Or maybe, it’s that we actually studied its history and meaning before going there and that there were two closed shops within the shopping mall (which drove me mad despite seasonality). Lots of maybes and not so many positive highlights.
Sforza Castle
After hours of walking around the centre of Milan, a dimly lit, grand structure attracted our curiosity. After getting a bit closer, we realised it was the Sforza Castle. With the depth of the night on a summer’s eve and almost no soul around, it was almost as if we were transported to another time.
It might have been the hot summer air, but we saw figures move in the odd lit window in this 15th-century fortification.
We walked around the Sforza Castle and arrived at its grand front facade with a beautiful water fountain. During the day, you can walk through the castle and see it from the inside, but enjoying it like this, at the depth of the night was so pleasant, that we didn’t feel we had missed out on anything by not going there during the day.
Don’t let the armed police forces bring your down, though. They patrol most of central Milan with their automatic guns and big trucks. It was odd seeing them, especially with a city so empty. But there they were, patrolling the city – day and night.
The Bar Mercurio (yup, a bar!)
A few minutes walk from Duomo di Milano, there is a compact bar, called The Bar Mercurio. It looks like any other Italian restaurant with its images of ready-made food and pastel yellow signage, but it invited us in with its light interior and seating available indoors (that was one hot day – air conditioning may be unfriendly to the environment, but it helps with the heat).
After a warm hello in Italian and pointing fingers to the right menu item, we ordered a couple of cocktails and a bottle of water. It was then when we learned what ‘Aperol Spritz Apperativo’ truly meant- it’s a cocktail together with snacks. In the end, we didn’t just have two refreshing cocktails, one Aperol and the other Campari, but also a lovely light lunch that kept us going for a while longer.
If you are in Milan, definitely consider having a drink at this restaurant and it’s lovely staff – their friendly service stood out by comparison to other places we had been to.
Fun fact: This same day we learnt about the table cover charge! One of the biggest travel tips when dining out in Italy is to always read the small print.
There is a tradition for restaurants to charge you for using a new table cover, in some restaurants it’s a symbolic €1 and we saw it go up to a whopping €5 in others and that’s per person without the tip!
3. Things we had to watch out for to stay safe in Milan
Big cities have pros and cons. Unfortunately, we didn’t particularly enjoy walking on the streets of Milan due to the noticeably ample amount of homeless people and those who were begging for money.
Avoid paying in cash
We had to use the ticket machine at the metro machine three times and two of those were unpleasant experiences. The first time, a person would stand near one, pretending to help us by showing how to buy the ticket and then asked me to give the ticket to him. Next time, the other man stood behind those who bought tickets at the machine, waiting for someone to pay in cash and then come up very close to the person to ask for the change.
This made me feel bad for the people who were going through this. But then, it also agitated me. I used to be the person who paid in cash for my tickets and the change was literally all I had. So then, pay with your card where you can and buy tickets in bulk.
Have a burner wallet
We recommend setting up a burner wallet when you are travelling. If you don’t know what this is, it’s a wallet that looks like a real one. It serves as a mock-up with your old and expired IDs to help if you are ever in a sticky situation or are robbed.
Oskar thought it was a bit much for Europe when reading up on this travel tip. We didn’t have one but rather kept almost no cash in his wallet when the guys from Senegal approached us. They would only leave after seeing that we only had 50 cents to give.
Be vigilant – people putting bracelets around your wrists and asking to sign for charity acts are a common issue in Milan.
Apparently, it has been an issue in Milan for a few years and we only realised this once we met them face to face. Mainly stationed around the top touristic attractions, these people stop you to put a bracelet over your hand. They work in pairs of two and three, so be careful if you ever meet them. They don’t speak English or Italian which made us sad as we don’t appreciate when residents of a said country don’t make an effort to learn the language.
Wouldn’t it be cool if four and five-star hotels supplied these bracelets? Guests would have a great experience and be willing to come back, or at the very least, be relieved of the discomfort.
Don’t flash your expensive equipment
We had big plans to take lots of beautiful photographs, do time-lapses, shoot the sunrise and sunset, film while walking through the suburbs in Milan and so on. But all of that failed because we didn’t feel like it was safe to bring out our equipment. And when we did, we would get quite a few unsavoury looks.
Sure, if it was our job to deliver the footage to save the world we would have done it, but the general atmosphere wasn’t welcoming at all.
Our conclusion – would we give Milan another chance?
While our second day in Milan was our least favourite day of our road trip, I’m sure we could give it another try at some point in the future. Staying at a mediocre hotel and getting bitten by ants didn’t help the experience, so definitely not too soon.
When we came to Milan, I was expecting to see beautiful architecture, a stronger fashion influence, but even more so the remnants from a time from centuries ago with respect towards it.
There were spurts of good experiences but I was *so* happy to leave this city. Oskar emphasised that he doesn’t see how you would ever want to spend more than one to two full days in Milan unless you are going to an event. I agree, if it’s an event you are attending or looking for a short city break, it’s not too bad. For us, Northern people who like to take care of their surroundings and cities, Milan is a puzzle that we aren’t eager to solve.
So tell us, have you ever been to Milan or maybe there is something you wish we would have covered?
2 comments
[…] Secondly, you want to know what area you are staying in. There’s no fun in staying in a hotel next to two completely abandoned buildings and an open field which also requires you to either walk through China town or take a long train journey to get to the city centre (as we found out when we got disappointed in Milan). […]
[…] Prague was, we tried to remain as sceptical as we could and politely ignore them. We remember what happened in Milan when we set ourselves up for a bit of downer! […]