Milano

The final chapter of our trip brought us to Milano. Verbania is situated an easy hour train ride north of Milano, so the logical point of arrival/departure is Milano Malpensa Airport (MXP). Since our flight out was at 10:30am, getting from Verbania to Milano and out to the airport by 8:30, would have been near impossible, or immensely unpleasurable at the very least. We decided to spend a day in Milano (two nights) in order to make the trip to the airport easier and also to see some of the city. 

Milano is a really nice city. It’s perhaps not as scenic in some ways as Roma, but I like it a lot better. If you do nothing else in Milano, you can always spend the time shopping. The city is like one giant mall. I personally prefer shopping at the smaller shops in a place like Firenze but Milano has plenty to offer. It’s also a flat city so it’s very easy to traverse by foot. In addition, the subway and trolley system is outstaning and easy to navigate. Milano now also has at least three bike share options as well which adds to the fun of getting around. 

Our visit to Milano started with the longest short walk ever. With the bike bags, short walks can seem long, but in this case we actually made the 500m walk very long. We arrived in Milano at 11am and were not able to check into our apartment until 2pm. There was a thought of checking our bags at a baggage storage facility and spending that time seeing something, but the only place that could accommodate our giant bike bags was out of the way and somewhat costly. By the time we got the bags there and retrieved them to walk to the apartment, it wouldn’t have been much time to do anything, so we just walked that 500m from the station to the apartment with lots of breaks. 

It was actually quite fine, and although a bit of a waste of time, it turned out to be a nice chance to people watch. The highlight was an old Italian woman who was walking her dog. She needed to know what we were doing with these giant bags standing around. She spoke no English but we managed to talk to her for quite some time. You would have thought she was my grandmother. Italians know no boundaries. Of course when she came back towards home, we were still there. We talked some more, we learned a bit about her, she learned about us, we got to practice some Italian, and it was a really nice experience with a real Italian person who lives in the neighborhood we were staying in. That’s what I want out of these trips. 

Once we checked in and made a quick stop at the grocery store around the corner for water, we were off, on the subway to downtown to go to the Duomo. The Duomo is the largest church in Milano and is one of the most ornate and spectacular basilicas I’ve ever seen. I’ve been there a few times, but it was Kristen’s first time seeing it, so we were sure to get tickets to go inside and up to the terraces and roof. Besides that we stopped at Princi Bakery for some pre-dinner snack of focaccia and the most incredible chocolate tart I’ve ever had in my life. From there we walked and did a little bit of shopping until finally heading back to the station area for dinner. 

On our second day in Milano, we walked more than I think I’ve ever walked before. After taking bikeshare bikes to the subway and taking the subway to the center, we didn’t get off our feet until much later that evening, even having to stand at the extremely busy Princi Bakery for lunch. We visited Castello Sforzesco which besides being an old fortress style castle, is now an incredible museum. The part that most interested us was the musical instrument museum that houses a seemingly endless collection of antique instruments, mostly of Italian origin. 

Probably the highlight of Milano was our visit to Bianchi Café and Cycles. As many of you may know, both Kristen and I ride Bianchi bicycles. Bianchi is the oldest still existing bicycle brand in the world. A few years ago, Bianchi opened a café-restaurant and concept shop in central Milano. The café and restaurant must be quite good as there were lots of non-cyclists in there while the bike shop was not particularly busy. Nothing there was exorbitantly expensive either which was really nice. The whole place was decked out in Celeste, Bianchi’s signiture color and it was thrill to be there. We spent some time down in the shop and talked with the guy running it that day. There were some very good deals to be had there on team bikes but ultimately we couldn’t bring back any more bikes to the US. I bought a t-shirt,Kristen had an espresso at the bar, and we went along our way.  

We also stopped in La Scala, Milano’s famous opera house for a tour of the museum and a quick peak into the theater itself where rehearsal for opening night was going on. We stopped at GROM for our final gelato of the trip before heading back to the apartment by subway. 

After taking a quick break, refilling on water, and using the bathroom, we headed back out towards Corso Buenos Aires, which is one of the longest shopping streets in the world. While the center of Milano based around the famous Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, features super high-end designer stores, Buenos Aires has many of the mass-market shops that I can afford. I was on a quest for a pair of European-style sneakers, but it seems like Italy is on this trend of white Adidas Stan Smith’s right now and I ultimately ended up coming home without any shoes. In fact, the only thing I came home with was a T-shirt from the Bianchi Store. It was a low budget trip and we stayed right on budget. Low budget definitely doesn’t mean unenjoyable. While I love shopping, this still was one of my favorite trips I’ve make to Italy... yet. Hopefully many more to come.

And that was that. After an early alarm to get to the station by 7:00 we were on a plane home to New Jersey. The flight was quick and easy despite a rocky descent, and even customs getting back into the US was unusually fast and easy. All in all, I’d say it was an excellent trip. I can’t say I’m glad to be back. I’d much rather be there. I always experience a culture shock when I come back to America. For so many reasons, Kristen and I really belong in Italy. Our current political climate aside, I still feel like a foreigner in this country and I’ll be very glad the day I can finally expatriate. 

Going forward, I am going to try to write more on this blog. For the cyclists reading, I’ll write about notable rides or events as well as product reviews. For everyone else, maybe I can write a bit about food or something similar. For now, I’m signing off for a little bit. Ultimately my goal will be to collect the best photos from the trip and write up a more consise piece that I hope can get publish in cycling media somewhere. I’ll keep you all updated.

Also if you would like any advice about traveling to Italy, or traveling with your bike, etc please do not hessitate to contact me at dscifell@gmail.com

Thanks so much for reading!