Travel — Blog 1 — michaelaugerofficial.com

Last year for my birthday I said I wanted to do a day trip to Milan as I had seen online everyone saying you could get return flights from London for just £39.

Because of my trip to Dubai for the Emirates advert and taking a trip with Nicole to New York, I thought Milan might be a bit excessive and I'd keep it in mind for the following year.

My birthday is March, so in about January I started to look at flight dates, times and prices to see what would work out best.

We decided to fly British Airways from Heathrow as although it was slightly more expensive than the £39 we hoped for, we managed to get flights for £89 per person, which is still cheaper than a theatre ticket to some West End shows!

We got the first flight out and the last flight home. I researched that Milan Linate was the airport closest to the centre of Milan and would take 30 minutes or less to travel to once we landed so thought this was the best option to maximise the day!

My mum actually got me a lonely planet book on Milan for Christmas as she knew it was my plan to go and I decided I wanted to come up with an itinerary based on the things that had stood out to me in that book.

The main thing I definitely wanted to do was go up the Duomo. The building looked beautiful and I thought the views from the top would be fantastic too! You have to pay to go to the Duomo so the first thing I did was book that in advance so that I could plan the rest of the day around those timings. I went for 2pm just to make sure we weren't rushing to get there and also weren't rushing to leave for the airport afterwards - smart right!!!?

Another attraction I wanted to see was the Arco della Pace but this was further from the airport than the Duomo so I thought if we headed there first we could then walk through the city and after the Duomo, be closer to the airport.

So then the exciting bit, planning the food!!! There are SOOOO many lovely places and from researching online it looked endless of restaurants saying they served the 'Best pasta in Italy' but I'd seen good reviews of a couple of places so I thought I'd look them up on the map and see how they would fit with walking from Arco della Pace to the Duomo.

The best fit was Pasta D'autore (Corso di Porta Ticinese, 16, 20123 Milano MI, Italy) although I wasn't able to book online so thought we would just turn up and hope for the best, and if we weren't able to get in, we would have plenty of options nearby.

I was slightly nervous because I'm not normally very lucky with things like this but....I'll get to that in a bit!

I didn't want to book anything else for the day as I really wanted to have the luxury of being able to wander around but I had made note of a couple of the museums, mainly Museo Del Novecento.

So the final thing we needed to sort before we headed off was parking at the airport and I don't know how I'd never heard of it but we saw the option for POD parking where you park away from the airport and then these automatic PODs (that can fit 4 people in) take you direct to the airport terminal! So after waking up at 4am and driving to the airport and parking, we hopped into a POD. It was very fun and we felt like we were in the incredibles or something, it felt very futuristic!

We didn't have any checked luggage as we were just doing a day trip so probably didn't need to get to the airport as early as we did but we didn't want to risk it and we ended up getting a Pret A Manger breakfast. I got an egg & avocado baguette, a pain au chocolat and an oat milk caramel latte - delicious!

The flight was a little turbulent but nothing too bad and we got water and a snack on board which was very well received.

We landed ahead of schedule and made our way to the exit. I decided to order an UBER at this point to take us straight to Arco della Pace just so that we didn't have to work out the Metro as I knew there would be a few line changes and didn't want to risk it. A lovely Mercedes pulled up and we were on our way. We were in the car for about 30 minutes and got dropped right by the Arco della Pace which was beautiful! It reminded me a bit of the arc de triomphe in Paris but a lot smaller. The weather was bright but cloudy, any excuse to wear sunglasses.

We were then able to take our time, strolling for the next hour or so, looking at the beautiful architecture and reaching Pasta D'autore just after midday. There was already a queue outside but we got in OK so luck was on our side! After we were seated and had ordered drinks the place was full. I initially ordered a glass of red wine but decided I needed something more refreshing so I just went for a gin and tonic in the end which was lovely.

We ordered a sharer platter to start, 2 pasta dishes and 2 pizzas to share between the 4 of us and I do have to give a shout out to the star meal of the day which was the 'crema di parmigiano' tagliatelle. Now what is quite fun at this place is that you get to choose your pasta as they've made it fresh that day and then you choose your topping. So if you prefer penne pasta, you could have that instead. It took us a while to eat and it was 1.15pm before we knew it so we were conscious of getting to the Duomo BUT we couldn't leave without trying the tiramisu which was supposedly their speciality. Now I'm not normally a fan of tiramisu but I thought 'when in Rome' (or Milan haha). It was delicious and then we were ready to pace to the Duomo which was harder with full stomachs, especially after they gave us complimentary limoncello shots too!!!! Happy Birthday to me.

We got to the Duomo at 2pm on the dot and they were absolutely fine. It had said please arrive 20 mins before your time slot so I had felt quite worried but we were ok. It was the upcoming stairs I should have been more worried about. They seemed to go on and on, but the views from the top were worth it!! The weather was still quite grey but there were little moments of blue skies and we had to be grateful that it still wasn't raining. In total we were probably at the Duomo for about an hour. Probably could have stayed longer but we knew we needed to be back at the airport by 5ish so didn't want to get too comfortable.

We then went to the free museum across the road that was part of the ticket price but I wouldn't recommend it. It was very dark and there was not much explanation of the items in there. It was a one way system and we found ourselves feeling a bit stressed as it seemed to go on for such a long time!!

We eventually got out and after almost buying a Christmas tree decoration, we headed to the Metro station and got distracted by a dessert shop where we actually went wild and ordered way more than we needed as we couldn't decide and I'm sad to say that all of it was a 7 out of 10 and we were really hoping for it to be a 10 out of 10. I think we had been spoiled with the pasta and pizza and maybe we were starting to feel a little tired.

We got on the Metro at around 5pm and it was really simple to get those tickets. It was really interesting as it seems to be the case that you pay by time. In London, you scan your ticket when you get on and off and then it works out how much you owe but in Milan it felt like our ticket was going to expire after a certain time limit.

We got to the airport with plenty of time and after attempting to get a group photo in a photobooth, waiting 10 minutes and then getting an error screen and never getting the photos, we headed to the gate.

We landed back in London at 8pm and got home before 10pm. So much fun.