My Milan Travel Diary

Back in early February I travelled to Italy with my mum and my brother. We landed in Rome and then made our way North — Florence, then Venice, Verona and finally Milan. The trip was suspiciously good — like we barely even had any rainy days, the pasta was always delicious and basically all of the photos we took were perfect kind of good. Needless to say, by the time we left the country in mid late February Italy as well, as the world, was a very different place.

Here is my little travel diary from the 3 days in Milan.

When - February 2020

We arrived in Milan by train on a gloomy afternoon upon hearing the news of Covid-19 cases in a nearby town. This was well before the country went into lockdown — at the time when no one really knew what was going to happen. As tourists, we considered leaving the country, but decided to stay — there was no official instructions on what to do, the numbers were below two hundred, we only had 3 nights in this city and no airline would considered it reasonable to rebook out flights at this point.

Where we stayed

We stayed at the Best Western Atlantic Hotel Milan — a great option particularly if you are looking to arrive by the train as it is the shorted 5 min walk from the train station. The hotel is also a mere 20 min walk from the Milan Duomo and is very modern and has solid scramlbed eggs and croissants for breakfast, but fairy unmemorable otherwise.

What we did

We just went on with our trip — all whilst trying to socially distance as much as possible by avoiding crowds and public transport. All of the attractions and museums were closed at this point anyway, so it basically meant that we spent the days walking around the sunlit city. The trip culminated with a little visit to Prada — a shop where, I’ve learned, it’s phenomenally easy to socially distance.

What we ate

Since there was little cultiral component to our time in Milan, the foodie in me really came out in this city (not the Instagram foodies though as I still feel very weird about photographing my food, haha). All of the food we had in Milan was very very good, but these 2 places we absolutely exceptional all while being very reasonably priced.

Patti Bakery and Bistrot

We came here for lunch one day and had to return the following day because it was just that good. This place is also always packed at lunch with locals, which is generally a good sign. The first time I had rigatoni pasta which was absolutely delicious, but the show was completely and utterly stolen by the bread basket — the walnut breadsticks are out of this world — so much so, that the following day I chose to order a salad, so I could properly load up on the breads.

Mescusi

This is possibly the best pasta bar I’ve been to. Here you get to put your own pasta together — chose the type of pasta, sauce, cheese and toppings you want. It’s super easy to select a vegetarian or a vegan option. The food is delicious, the interior and the atmosphere is super friendly and the glasses of red wine are very generous. Unfortunately we only discovered this restaurant on our last night in Milan, but would definitely love to come back to it in the future.

We were definitely incredibly lucky — the timing was on our side and we saw this beautiful city before the storm of the pandemic hit. We flew out of Milan in late February and upon arriving in Russia chose to self quarantine even though there were no direction from any authority to do so.

Now, sitting in the gloomy Melbourne lockdown, I’m glad that I got my travel in this year — who knows when I will be able to leave my living room again + plus I’ve got my gorgeous Prada bag to keep my travel memories alive. I’m hopeful about a trip to NSW in a few months, but we’ll talk about that later.

Photos taken back in February 2020

Xx

Lena