Milan

Introduction

I’ve explored other parts of Italy before coming on this trip, but Milan always interested me. And I would say visiting Milan was a great trip (especially before the Winter Olympics!). Milan has less to do than I would have liked, but I felt like a weekend was good enough to see the city’s highlights.

To get around, you can just use tap to pay on your credit card. You can also use an actual ticket machine or the app (which you’ll need to do if you’re taking regional trains, like the one to Lake Como). I found public transportation and simply walking around to be most reliable!

*** bolded - highly recommended

Nature

Sforzesco Castle - the castle is nice to stroll around, but you don’t need to spend too much time here. After walking through the castle, I recommend walking through Parco Sempione and ending at the Arco della Pace.
Brera Botanical Garden - the garden was free to access and it was cool to see all the different plants.

food

La Libera - I got the buckwheat pappardale with white veal ragu, which was incredibly tasty! The pasta was wonderful, I only wish there was more pasta.
Mascherpa the original tiramisù boutique - this is a cute small shop where they sell the tiramisu in jars, it was quite good!
Pasta d’Autore - wow, this spot was the best place I tried during my 1.5 days in Milan. I got the taglientenne with the ragu sauce and it was absolutely amazing. I also got the tiramisu at the end, which was really yummy. My only regret was not upsizing to a bigger portion for 3 euros.
Miscusi - this is a chain pasta restaurant and the pasta they served was actually quite tasty. You order off the table’s QR code and the food came relatively quickly.

Attractions

Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio
Pinacoteca di Brera - entering the main area requires a fee, but visiting the immediate building is free and makes for a good photo opp.
Leonardo's Last Supper Museum - To get tickets, you have to make a reservation on their website. It’s VERY hard to get a reservation, so if this is important to you, make sure you start looking early. You have to check into the ticket office 30min before your reservation so they could “activate” your ticket, and water is not allowed. You can put your bags in the lockers at the ticket office. Then, at the actual entrance, someone will check your ticket. Overall, it’s an interesting piece of artwork but you’re literally paying just to see the art. You can look at Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie while waiting.

Just passing by

The area around Duomo is kind of touristy and doesn’t have much to do, but the church itself is incredibly grand.
- Duomo di Milano
- Piazza del Duomo
- Piazza Mercanti
- Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Teatro alla Scala

Lake comO & Aosta

Lake Como day trip
Planning a day trip to Lake Como is quite easy, and you could do it in half a day if you had to. The top things to do in Como is actually kind of laid out in a loop, where you could take the train from Milan Central to Varenna-Esino, then take the ferry to Bellagio and Como, or do it the other way around.

Check the ferry & train schedule beforehand since the trains and ferries might bre infrequent. I would recommend checking the timings, so you aren’t stuck in one place for too long. Como, Bellagio, and Varenna are the most popular stops along the way.

Here are the most notable stops in each spot.

Varenna Esino
- Passeggiata degli innamorati
- Villa Monastero
Bellagio
- Punta Spartivento
- Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni
- Basilica of St. Giacomo
- Via Pescallo
Como
- Villa Olmo
- Tempio Voltiano
- Plaza Alessandron Volta
- Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta - Duomo di Como

Pila / Aosta Valley
I’ve heard great things about skiing in Europe, so when I was planning this trip, there were a few options that I was considering. And I ended up going to Pila in the Aosta Valley because it seemed like the most convenient option with a diverse set of runs.

Pila had a great selection of easier runs vs more challenging runs, but I found Pila to lean on the slightly more advanced side (US red/blue equivalent). But I didn’t find the slope too crowded even though there were quite a few people!

Getting there
To get to Aosta Valley from MXP or the Milan city center, there are a lot of buses going towards Aosta departing from various points in Milan. To get to Aosta, I chose to take an airport bus to Lotto, and then take the metro from Lotto to Lampugnano. You could take the bus straight from Malpensa Airport, but it really depends on the time of day you leave.

You can take the 153 bus via Arrivia (this is what I did both ways (purchase link), Flixbus, (via Lampugnano) or via MXP. Take the bus to the Aosta Autostation where it drops you off at the city center.

Getting around
The city is incredibly walkable where you could easily walk to the gondola that takes you to the ski resort in 15min-30min, depending on where you’re staying. I elected to stay in an Airbnb on the farther side, so my walk was around ~20min.

On Friday, there was a festival happening in most of the alleys in the city where street vendors were selling food and their homemade goods around early to late morning. A lot of the goods were handmade!

Skiing logistics
To get to Pila, you can either drive up to get to the main resort area, or take the gondola at ground level (near the Aosta city center) to get to the resort area. I recommend taking the gondola since it’s included in your ski ticket and it’s convenient.

You could rent gear at ground level (at Gal Sport), and then take it up and down the gondola, but I opted to rent my gear after getting off the gondola. I’m glad I opted to rent at the ski resort because for the store I used (Noleggio Sci La Soletta), I was able to put a small deposit down to reserve the equipment I wanted the day before, and it was already there waiting for me when I arrived. The store is also right off a side exit of one of the ski runs, so it was super easy to ski right to the entrance at the end of the day. And the shop owner had the cutest German shepherd!

You can buy the skipass at this link where they offer multiple options. If you’re a beginner, you can probably just get the “beginner” pass which is a lot cheaper and you still get some quality runs. You buy your ticket online, and then you can go to a kiosk and scan the QR code you get to get your ticket.

Here is a ski map & their hours.
The beginner pass includes Aosta-Pila gondola (A), Pila-Gorraz gondola (B), Baby Gorraz - Baby Pila 1 et 2 (E, F-G).
You can look at this ski rental site that’s officially run by the mountain, or an equipment rental site aggregator.