Gucci’d and Pucci’d in Milan

Our last trip to Italy was all about Rome. Rome had more than enough to keep even us, an attention-span challenged couple, interested for three days and we still came back wanting more of Italy, its wonderful pizzas, gelatos and people. At one point Anusha and I were debating taking a 2-week backpacking trip though the boot-shaped country, starting off at Milan and making our way through Venice, Florence, Pisa, Napoli and then onto Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. I know that would have been a wonderful trip but schedule clashes and the impending move to the US made that trip impossible. Not willing to give up completely on our Italian dreams, we decided on 4 days based out of Milan but with day trips to Venice, Pisa and Florence.

We landed at the Milan Linate airport around 10 in the morning. Milan Linate airport is probably has the smallest arrival lounge I have seen in a big city in Europe. The old Bangalore airport was bigger. What is keeping this airport ticking is that its only 7 Kms from the city centre. Talking to people I gathered that it is probably looking at either a major facelift or the same fate as the old Bangalore airport as the new Malpensa airport (56 Kms from Milan) is the bigger airport for Milan and has better connections to different parts of the city.

As usual, we found the best public transport means to our hotel. We had to take a bus to the city centre and then either walk or take any of the other means of public transport to get to our destination. As with any other major European city, Milan has a good public transport network consisting of three Metro lines, plenty of Trams and busses. The bus dropped us off in the city centre and we had our first glimpse of the magnificent Duomo. I will tell you more about the Duomo a little later.

I was a bit suspicious of our hotel in Milan. It’s name, Splendido, sounded more like a Spanish underwear brand than a hotel and didn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence. It had decent reviews and was supposed to be right next to the central station making our day trips easier, so I picked it. True to the reviews, the hotel was about 100 feet from the central station, has a fancy reception area and very nice and decent sized rooms. The only complaint I have with the hotel, as with the ones in Vienna and Dusseldorf, the AC does not cool! We were early and had to putz around the station square for about an hour eating, watching the pigeons and people before our room was ready for check in. Taking these early morning flights isn’t a time saver really since we end up crashing at the hotel for a couple of hours recovering before we head out in the city. By the time, we made it back into the city centre, it was 4pm.

The magnificent Duomo greets you as you get out of Duomo metro station. It’s a gothic style cathedral made from what looked like White Marble. This whiteness gives is a very distinct look unlike any other cathedral we had seen before. Like with most things, it’s true image cannot really be captured by a camera. It has to be seen in person to get the full appreciation of its beauty.





Beside the Duomo is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. The GVE is the one of the top shopping arcade of Milan where big name brands such as Prada, Gucci, Pucci, expensive restaurants and McDonalds have learned to coexist peacefully. The Duomo Square was extremely lively and we walked through north from the side of the Duomo through the shops and restaurants and out to the Piazza.

The next stop was the castle (more like a fort). This 800 year old structure has been built and rebuilt multiple times by generations as with the case with any other castle. However, unlike the Prague castle, this one isn’t glamorous at all. It’s a dull red brick building and we even passed by one of the walls in the tram earlier without really noticing it and had to come back to see it. Although our first impressions of this castle weren’t great, it started to work its magic on us as we walked into and around it.







What we needed was to understand the past to bring the present into perspective. This old map of Milan depicting the old city walls and the castle hammered the point home for us. We spent the next hour of so sitting around the castle park people watching.

Exploring the non-touristy parts of Milan was the next item on the agenda for the evening. We transferred a couple trams and took them to the end of the line watching the city unfold from within the tram. We decided to take a bus back so that we take a different route. We looked for a bus which travelled to the Centrale FS. Just to give you some context, we took the bus from the east end of the city and had to get to the north-central part of Milan. A journey of about about 7-8 Kms, 30 minutes max, according to the map or at least so we thought. Shortly after we left, the bus left the map and I could no longer follow where it was headed. We travelled for about an hour and still we were in untraceable territory. Directions for the San Siro appeared and disappeared. That’s what got me thinking, the San Siro is in the West of the city and we weren’t supposed to be West. We finally managed to trace what the bus was doing. We were on one of the city orbitals. We had gone South and then West and now were finally heading North. We were never really off the map, I was just looking in the wrong direction. A little over an hour and a half after we had left, we got off at our stop. Since it was an orbital, had we taken the same bus number one from the other side of the road we would have made our stop in 20 minutes or so, but then we wouldn’t have been able to see the parts of Milan that we did.

There was one episode still left in this chapter. Anusha was absolutely famished after this unplanned journey all around Milan. We got into a local Pizzeria and ordered a Pizza with cheese, onion, tomato, olives and anchovies. Yeah yeah, I know Anchovies is fish. I confused anchovies with artichokes. We asked them if we could change the order but they had already made the pizza. We ended up ordering some pasta and having that instead and paying for the whole lot anyway and also a hidden cover charge. This is one thing to look out for when eating at local joints in Northern Italy. Find out upfront if there is a cover charge. Most places have a cover charge of anywhere between 3-5 Euros on eating in.

I was somehow expecting more from the Fashion capital of the world. The dressing sense for most Milanos seemed either too sleazy or too trashy, maybe because it was a Sunday? The town and the people seemed very unwelcome and cold. I guess there is more in common with Paris than just the craze for fashion. We do have a day during the week as well. Maybe we will feel different about Milan by the end of it?

Anyway, having learned a couple of lessons for the day, we turned in tired and weary. We had to be up at 6am the next day to make our 7:30am train to Venice.