Hello Milan

Here we are in Italy. I’m so excited to be visiting Milan and was very excited to have my very first real Italian pizza. Pizza is one of my favourite things, definitely at the top of my "if you could choose one last thing to eat" list. 

We started the day early and had loads of time at the airport, or so we thought, it was Mick who noticed our gate waiting area had emptied, I was busy finishing my Paris blog, Ken was in the loo and Leisa was playing on her phone. Who pays attention to the boarding time really? We weren’t due to leave until 8.50 and it was only 8.15..... oops they boarded at 8.10. Not a problem... we jumped up and boarded the bus which took us on a 15 min ride over to the plane. I didn’t realize it was such a huge airport. 

We arrived and got our taxi transfer to our lovely hotel. Our rooms weren’t ready so we headed off in search of food.  We wandered towards the Duomo and OMG it is enormous and beautiful. It’s smack bang in the middle of the city and such an amazing gothic structure. We found a little eatery and got to have my very first Margarita Pizza. I just had to photograph it and share it. It didn’t disappoint. The dough was light and quite soft and the flavor was just as I imagined, bellissimo!! We washed our pizza down with a glass of Pinot Grigio, perfection!!

We had booked a walking tour at 2.00 so while we were waiting Leisa and I checked out the shopping in the beautiful old Galleria and managed to try on some Gucci shoes. Tempting, very tempting. Louis Vuitton called but we resisted entering. 

At 2.00 we met our guide Francesca outside the Duomo and went on a 2 1/2 hour walking tour, which sounded great when I booked but I didn’t know the temperature was going to be close to 30 and we’d been up since 5am so it was a bit of a slog. However,  the tour was interesting and we walked though the botanical gardens, saw the amazing library and circled 3 times with our foot on the bulls testicles on the floor of the galleria for good luck.  We finished the tour with some Prosecco and gelato before heading back to the hotel. 

The hotel is a great find. It’s near the shopping district and only a 5 min walk from the duomo. Since we are only here for 2 nights we wanted somewhere we could walk to where we needed to be. Montenapoleone Suites is in a great location and is a small boutique hotel. We have a massive spa bath in the middle of our bedroom and red mood lighting, it’s certainly interesting. Seriously though, it’s lovely and we’re very happy to call it home for 2 nights. 

We decided our feet weren’t made for walking anymore tonight so we opted to eat at the lovely little restaurant just diagonal so the hotel. We had lovely meals of pasta, salad and steak with some more delicious Pinot Grigio. After dinner we were offered a complimentary digestive of lemoncello, it was quite potent but delicious, they poured another and left the bottle on the table. Needless to say we shall all sleep well tonight.