I booked a weekend in Milan during one of the cheap Ryanair sales, and we were initially due to go in September but pushed it out to the first weekend of December. I had never been to Italy before so was very much looking forward to putting on a good 3 stone over the weekend. 

Hotel

We use Hotels.com for most of our hotel bookings, and avail of the loyalty program where after booking 10 nights with them, you get the average back. So we put this towards Milan as hotels were crazy expensive. We booked into The Square Duomo in the centre of the city and had a nice room here. The hotel was grand, it had a small bar at the reception area and that was about it. 

Restaurants 

AmaMi – We found this restaurant on Sunday afternoon and managed to get one of the last bookings. We ordered two pizzas and some cocktails for a quick lunch. The pizza’s were huge but unbelievable. The staff here were super friendly, and got great amusement that our last name was Tracey, so they played Tracy Chapman for the restaurant. 

N’ombra De Vin – I read some reviews of this restaurant before we left Dublin, so it was on my list of places to visit! We arrived for lunch and sat upstairs (should have sat downstairs as it looks nicer!). We got a light lunch in here, I got a mushroom lasagna and Sean got meatballs. We did get a plate of salami to share which was delicious! This is where I started my love of Aperol Spritz (as they added ginger to it). 

Cicinin della Ripa – We were pretty drunk and went for a walk along the canal where we found this little place. It wasn’t touristy at all (the staff spoke a tiny bit of english!). We got two pizzas in here, we chose the only one we thought had meat on it. The food was lovely and it was pretty cheap – it was a nice, random little find. 

Crazy Cat Cafe – We went to the Cat Cafe on the Sunday and was surprised to see it was a proper restaurant. We managed to get two seats for a quick drink – the food being served looked amazing, and I could see why it was fully booked. They had about 8 or so cats all asleep in various parts of the cafe. It was much different to any of the other ones we’ve been to, where the cats are moving about. 

Bars

Twist on Classic – We came across this little bar down by the canals, and wasn’t holding out much hope as it seemed like a dive bar. We were quite surprised that it was a nice little place and the staff were super friendly. We stayed here for an hour or so before moving to M.A.G.

M.A.G – We found this little cocktail bar on the Saturday afternoon and it was jammed when we got there. We hung around for a few minutes until two people at the bar left. We were only planning on having one here but we ended up having quite a lot. We went in at 3:30pm and were told that we could only get an Old Fashioned from 5pm, we thought this was a bit odd but it turned out their main cocktail bartenders started at 5pm and they did not disappoint.

Backdoor 43 – We read about this place quite a bit, so went there after M.A.G, when we were quite drunk. It’s a little window that you knock on and you have a selection of a handful of cocktails. Its marketed as the smallest cocktail bar ever – but its actually owned by the same people who own M.A.G next door, so is a bit of a lie.

Things To Do

I’m writing this almost a year after Milan, so I’m trying to remember back to the things we did. Mainly it was walking through the city and visiting the Duomo or the Breara district. We also strolled through the park and up to the castle, which was interesting to walk around. Milan was lovely, and I’m glad I went but its not somewhere I’d be rushing back to again.