Category: Blog

Breakfast was collect by the girls from over the road, before we headed to the Uffizi gallery for the morning. Then a wander around the main sights – Ponte Santa Trinita (bridge), Pitti Palazo, Ponte Vecchio, Fontana del Porcellino, Piazza della Signoria and Palazzo Vecchio.

Then lunch. We wanted a sandwich from the highly recommended All’Antico Vinaio, and knew we’d need to queue…but when we arrived at the one closest to us (there are a few branches across Florence) we found massive queues – hundreds of people. They’d had a power cut and couldn’t make sandwiches!! So we decided to walk to another branch, near the Accademia Gallery. Not everyone was happy with the decision, but the food was excellent when we eventually got it.

Dinner was at a very traditional restaurant, again a recommendation – Trattoria La Burrasca. A bit more challenging than many others, it was extremely simple but incredibly tasty.

A walk and metro trip to Milano Centrale, we headed out of Milan and towards Florence. We booked a 4-person cabin on the train, very comfortable and would have been spacious if not for our luggage! Free food on the train was not the best….not up to Japanese bullet train standard, nor our own trains…but it was free. We arrived at Firenze Santa Maria Novella station a few hours later, and headed off in the heat to find our accommodation – Sette-Angeli Rooms. Clean and comfortable, but simple and not as exciting as the hotels we’d normally stay in.

We asked the accommodation’s owner for a recommendation for lunch – downstairs (NOT upstairs!) at the Mercato Centrale. She was right – really simple and cheap, yet incredibly tasty pasta, that the locals clearly frequent. A wander into Florence, we found the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella, the original Panerai watch shop (some really nice, old and valuable pieces) and then headed for pre-booked entrance to the impressive Accademia Gallery, to see Michaelangelo’s David.

Then dinner at another recommendation – the excellent Trattoria La Gratella, a traditional Tuscan restaurant.

More hotel breakfast set us up for an other day in Milan, starting at the Leonardo3 museum – full of models and working replicas of some of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions. We then hopped on the metro again and headed north, to the modern shopping area at Piazza Gae Aulenti. Lunch was at Berberè Isola, a pizza restaurant chain but clearly very popular with locals out from office work for lunch.

A walk around Isola and the impressive Vertical Forest – a modern architectural area with tree covered buildings. We then walked back through various shopping areas, including Via Monte Napoleone and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II having a look in various stores on the way, before heading back to the hotel.

The adults went out before dinner for Aperitivo (not that great!) before pasta for dinner for all.

After breakfast at hotel (fruit, cake, eggs, coffee), we headed into Milan for a big day of sightseeing. First the Duomo (Milan Cathedral) where we headed up to the roof before looking at the spectacular interior. Then onto the Museo del Novecento, a 20th century Italian art museum with some really interesting sculptures. Lunch was pizza, at Gino Sorbillo in the very impressive Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

After lunch we walked slowly (as it was incredibly hot!) to the Piazza Affari (to see the rather rude Il Dito statue), then onto the Castello Sforzesco. We decided not to go into the museums here, instead wandering through the castle and to Sempione Park to see the Arch of Peace. Sadly the park was closed due to the number of fallen trees from the storm. So we had ice cream instead!

For dinner we took a trip on the metro to a different part of town, eating at the Cantiere Hambirreria Milano – amazing barbeque style food. On the way home, we walked from the metro station via the canal, which was too busy with bars for our liking!

After a quick flight from Manchester to Milan Bergamo airport, we found our chauffeur for the trip into the city and to the Aethos Milan hotel. We had arrived a few days after a huge storm hit the area, bringing down a lot of large trees across the city. The hotel was superb – the bar area was huge, a large part was effectively outdoors (enormous removeable roof), and it was packed full of random stuff. The rooms were really comfortable, and individually themed. Strangely the hotel was almost empty – we only saw a handful of other guests throughout. The reason is simple – Italians head out of the cities and go to the lakes for their summer break!

A walk in the heat locally to find lunch at a nearby café, we found the Colonne di San Lorenzo before heading to the Ambrosian Library – a huge museum with various exhibitions devoted to Leonardo da Vinci’s work including a large number of his engineering drawings. Fascinating stuff, and worth the visit.

To end the day we had dinner at Dinner at Blue M Milano (Bottega Marchigiana). The food and wine was exceptional, effectively a selection of local Italian delicatessen – very similar style to Pride and Provenance in Halifax.