A few weeks ago, another search on google.com/flights turned up some great deals and we were able to score €50 roundtrip flights to Milan. We didn’t want to use any vacation days from work, so we flew out on Friday night and returned home on Sunday. What’s more European than popping over to Italy for Friday happy hour? Since we were flying on a low-cost carrier, we flew into Bergamo airport (not Milan’s main airport), which is about an hour away from the city. After an easy bus ride, we arrived at our Airbnb apartment and went out for pizza.
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| This looked more like Pizza Hut than other pizza I'd had in Italy, but was still delicious! |
On Saturday, we hit all the touristy stops in Milan, the main one being the ENORMOUS Duomo cathedral. Our entry ticket also included access to the roof of the church. We had to climb a million stairs, but the view was worth it. Right next to the cathedral is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping mall, which is one of the oldest “malls” in the world. It’s filled with stores from all of the haute couture designers, including the flagship Prada store. It was fun to window shop, but we didn’t buy anything!
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| Milan Cathedral |
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| View from the top |
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| Interior |
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| View from the front door |
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| Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II |
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| Interior of the Galleria |
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| Lunch! |
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| Dessert! |
After window shopping until we dropped, we partook in another famous Milanese tradition: the aperitivo. The aperitivo is sort of like a happy hour, squeezed in before the late Italian dinnertime. Most bars and restaurants offer the aperitivo from around 6pm-9pm; with the purchase of a drink, patrons can also snack from a free buffet. We followed the Chow Gypsy blog’s recommendations and tried a few different places in the Navigli canal district. The only downside to our aperitivo crawl was that we were too full for dinner after stuffing ourselves with breads, meats, and cheeses.
We decided to spend our last day visiting Bergamo since that was where the airport was located. Bergamo is split into two parts, the lower city and the upper city. The upper city sits on the mountainside in the foothills of the Alps and overlooks the surrounding countryside. There’s a funicular connecting the two areas as well as regular busses. We spent our entire time wandering through the winding, steep streets in the upper city. Sunday afternoon seemed like a busy time and we were turned away from several full restaurants before finding something for lunch.
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| Bergamo Cathedral |
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| Goat Cheese and Pepper Ravioli |
After sight-seeing, we took the bus back to the airport for our 6pm flight. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed seven hours and we didn’t land back in Cologne until 3am Monday!
