[Italy Fall Vacation] Day 01 : Exploring the city of Milan + Dinner at La Gioia

The Euro dollar recently suffered a huge currency drop against the SGD dollar. Baby decided to make the best of it by going back to Europe again. Moreover, we were still left with some euro dollars from our June Paris trip. This is our first trip to Italy, and we began planning for this trip by keeping a lookout for cheap airfares. We decided on our base as Milan, as tickets to Rome were extremely high. Baby did some additional research to visit other nearby places of interests, and we decided that we would be heading to other parts of Italy. In short, he did most of the preparation and planning, which I love him deeply for!

We purchased our air tickets from Singapore Airlines which were a non-stop direct flight to Milan. In all, we paid less than SGD1600 per pax for our return tickets which I felt was pretty reasonable.

My flight journey to Malpensa (MXP) Airport was about 13 hours, and the selection on food and drinks were pretty wide.

We landed at MXP Airport at about 0820AM local time. Do note Milan is around 6-7 hours behind us in Singapore, hence we sort of earned a half a day there! 

We bought our high-speed train tickets from the airport to Milano Cadorna Station. We were greeted by a piece of interesting art outside the station when we headed down to do our transferring to the local train to our apartment. It was just 3 stops away which located at the heart of Milan. We reached around 1046AM. 

The check-in time was around 3pm, so we needed to store our luggage with the reception. We took many photos at the Piazza del Duomo as well as the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

We fulfilled the mission of the Legend of Lucky Bull at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II – Simply spin on your heels on the Bull’s balls to bring good luck!

While waiting for our apartment to be ready, we had some refreshments at Marchesi 1824 which is located at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. 

It was a pleasurable experience, and it was my first time trying out an Aperol Spritz!

Our stay in Milan was centrally located near the City Centre, which is just a 3-minute walk to the Duomo di Milano. The Duomo, symbol of Milan in the world, is one of the largest cathedrals in Italy and Europe. It is the most impressive structure in Milan. 

Once we checked in to the apartment, we got changed and we were ready to explore the lovely city of Milan. 

Baby purchase the tickets to enter Duomo di Milano - one of the world's largest Gothic cathedrals, which was located in the heart of the city. 

We took many photos on the rooftop of Duomo di Milano. It was an incredible experience!

We took the train to our dinner place, as we had made a reservation at 730pm at La Gioia - a Fine Dining Italian Restaurant. 

It is a great place to have a true Italian meal, and my favorite was the Truffle Pasta, and the Tiramisu was perfect too!

Shorter days are expected in Fall/Winter, as sunset was around 5pm. We made our way back to our apartment after our dinner, as we were quite tired after our long flight the night before from Singapore. We needed to charge up our energy levels in order to explore the lovely city of Milan the very next day!

Stay tuned for my next day’s itinerary in this beautiful city of Milan…