24 HOURS IN MILAN
How we visited the fashion capital of the world in 24 hours
Sometimes spontaneous trips are the best, so we began to plan an overnight visit to London. After we totalled up the costs of travelling to London and back, staying overnight and booking activities, it was roughly going to cost us around £250 per person. We thought this was such a massive amount to spend just to visit London, so we decided to broaden our search and see where we could fly. Due to our trip being so last minute, there were some great last minute deals for flights - we decided to book the cheapest flight out from Manchester, which was to Milan, costing just £15 per person for a return.
After booking our flight, it was time to look at hotels. Due to us only spending the 1 night in Milan, we decided that we need a hotel with a great location in the centre of the city. After spending about 15 minutes researching Milan, we found a great hotel on Booking.com called Missori Suites. This 4* hotel has a great location - with tram and metro stops just outside, clean, well maintained rooms, tea and coffee facilities, TV and it was great value for money. We stayed in a Standard Double Room and this cost us just £170 for the night. You can take a look a the property here
For a transfer, we decided to take a bus shuttle from Milan Airport into the centre, and then walk to our hotel. The transfer cost us £10 per person for a return.
So far we were on a total of £110 per person, which left us £140 per person to make our trip cheaper than visiting London. Now was for our favourite part of the trip - planning the itinerary! With this we already had a few places in mind we wanted to visit thanks to our friends Stephen and Elaine, who are avid Italy travellers (you can read their blog post here.) After 2 hours of planning, we had our flights, hotel, transfer and itinerary planned for the whole trip; and you wont believe the price!
Our flight departed from Manchester Airport at 6:15am to land in Milan at 9:25am. We got straight through airport security and headed towards our pre-arranged bus transfer to take us straight into the centre. On arrival, we were dropped off at the Milan station which is a historical building with Italian decor features - just what you'd expect from Milan. It was now time to set off on our journey through Milan and begin our mini adventure.
On the day we visited it was predicted thunderstorms, however for some reason they had a heatwave and at 10am the temperature was around 32°C - which we definitely weren't complaining about.
Our first stop in Milan was the Castello Sforzesco. On our way to this famous castle, we stumbled accross the Milan tram. The Milan #1 tramline operates the oldest trams in the world - in fact these trams were famously exported to San Francisco, where they now can be found in museums.
After walking down the infamous cobbled paths on Milans backstreets, dripping with designer boutiques we finally made it to Castello Sforzesco. This medevil fortification was built in the 15th century and is one of the largest citadels in Europe. You can go inside the grounds for free or you can participate in one of the great activities such as a Last Supper and Castle Tour. Just as we got into the grounds of the castle, along came the thunderstorm. So we decided to head into the shops nearby, where Ben saw one of his favourite nostalga shop - Game Stop!
5 minutes later we arrived at the famous Duomo (Cathedral) of Milan. Built it 1965, the gothic style Duomo is the second largest cathedral in Europe and the third largest in the world, with millions flocking to see it every year. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan, and has a capacity of 40,000 people.
Next on our list was Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II, which is Italy's oldest active shopping centre and a major tourist attraction on Milan. One of the most famous things to do whilst visiting this landmark is look out for the mosaic bull of the floor, spin on your heel in a circle 3 times on the bulls 'private' area for good fortune.
By this time, the church bells rang 3 times which meant it was time to check in to our hotel, Missori Suites. We stayed in room 2 which was a Standard Double Room. After a quick freshen up it was time to hit the streets of Milan again. Anyone who knows Ben, knows his favourite food is fried chicken. Whilst walking around, we spotted one of the famous Phillipino fried chicken joints, known as Jollibee's, which our Phillipino friends have told us so much about. So we decided to treat ourselves to a quick snack - which was delicious! When it Italy, it would be rude not to drink coffee and there was a Lavazza flagship store just minutes away with our names written all over it. We ordered the Mochachino Gilanto and a Crema Al Caffe. As if we hadn't eaten enough food already at this time, we went for a walk down the canal in an area known as Navigli (the canal district of Milan) and bought some pastries which included the likes of Rollino Ricotta, Iris Al Pistacchio and Cartoccio.
Once we had all our goodies for later, we decided to call it a night and return to the room (not before stopping off at another local Italian restaurant to grab some pasta to eat in the room.) We had walked around 16 miles Milan, exploring everywhere we could!
After we got back, we enjoyed our local foods we bought, turned the TV on and set our alarms for our 6am flight the following day.
So now you've heard our adventure, do you want to know what we spent in Milan in 24 hours?
After spending £50 per person on activities, food and souvenirs (you know Dec and his magnet addiction), it took our grand total to £160 per person for 24 hours in Milan! If this doesn't convince you to book yourself a spontaneous European trip - then we don't know what else will!
P.S. Be sure to check out the real-time vlog of our 24 hour trip to Milan!
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