A Day in Milan

May 16, 2026May 1, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

After 2 weeks of hiking in the Dolomites, I had one day in Milan before flying back to Canada. Milan is not the natural entry point for the Dolomites. The closest airport is in Venice and that’s where I flew into. Venice was also cheaper, but I really wanted to visit Milan before leaving, so I paid extra to fly out of there instead. It was another full day of travel on public transport to get from Val Gardena to Milan, but it was sunny and warm when I arrived, in comparison to the chill that had moved into the Dolomites.

Milan is a large city, but a lot of the attractions are centrally located. I would have liked to stay right in the city centre, but I was alone and it was very expensive, so I opted to stay near the Milano Centrale train station instead. This made it easier arriving in the city and getting to the airport, which is quite far outside of Milan. That said, I didn’t love the neighbourhood around the train station. I don’t want to say it was unsafe, because I don’t think it was, but I also didn’t feel totally at ease there. I stayed in a nice little AirB&B, but because I was a woman traveling on her own, something about the location felt a little off.

I arrived around 5pm and had a day and half until my departure flight. I found a nice little restaurant nearby on the first night and was determined to try some of Milan’s classic dishes, the most popular of which is ossobuco alla milanese. It’s a veal shank with saffron risotto and it was as delicious as it sounds. I had a nice glass of red wine with it and really enjoyed the experience.

But I only had one full day in Milan, so I had a lot to explore. My plan had been to take it easy after doing so much hiking the previous week, but walking is by far the easiest way to get around, so I ended up tracking 16km on my solo day in the city. I left in the morning and decided to walk into the city centre. If you want to skip the line at the major attractions, I highly recommend getting your tickets in advance. The main thing I wanted to do while in Milan was visit the Duomo, which is one of the world’s largest gothic cathedrals and took nearly 6 centuries to build. It is the most iconic structure in Milan and absolutely worth the extra money I paid to fly out of Milan. I bought a timed entry ticket a few weeks before the trip so that I wouldn’t have to wait in line when I visited. I bought the ticket that included the walk around the walls, the roof, and inside the cathedral.

I enjoyed a scenic walk from my AirB&B to the cathedral, stopping at a very instagramable cafe called Gelsomina for breakfast. Along my way to the city centre, I walked along the via Monte Napoleone, which is part of the high fashion district. It was then that I realized I just happened to be visiting Milan at the end of Milan Fashion Week! I did not plan this at all, but it was a happy coincidence. It resulted in the city being a bit busy, but I loved people watching. I’ve never felt so poorly dressed in my life, but I loved checking out all the high fashion outfits people were wearing on the street.

The Duomo was everything I hoped for. It was a beautiful sunny day and it’s impossible not to be in awe of the intense level of detail sculpted into every inch of the massive cathedral. Even if you don’t go inside, it’s still awe-inspiring from the square. My favourite part was walking around the outer walls of the cathedral. It’s cool to walk on the roof as well and it has nice views of the city, but from an architectural perspective, I thought the walls were the most detailed.

It was also a Sunday when I visited and I realized when I entered the inside of the cathedral, pretty much exactly at 11am, that I’d arrived just in time for church. There was a procession of priests walking into the center of the cathedral and I sat in the pews for a while to watch the spectacle, even though I couldn’t understand anything since it was all in Italian. Somehow the cathedral feels even bigger from the inside, it’s hard to imagine how much stone the enormous columns are supporting.

Honestly, if I’d gone to Milan and just done the Duomo, I would have been satisfied, but it still wasn’t even lunch time yet, so I had lots of city left to explore. I spent some time walking up via Torino, which is another shopping district next to the cathedral, but much more affordable than the high fashion district, which was packed with names like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Versace, Hermes, Valentino, and any other high fashion name you can think of.

The other popular attraction, which is located right next to the Duomo, is the Galleria Vittoria Emanuele II, which is basically another shopping centre, but has a beautiful glass roof. This area is also well known for the Camparino, which is a staple in Milan. While the rest of Italy is known for Aperol, Milan is known for Campari, a bitter Italian liqueur. I sampled a few Aperol Spritz during my time on the Alta Via 1, and I wasn’t a huge fan, but I figured, when in Milan, you have to try the Campari Spritz.

I decided to make a meal of it and found a nice restaurant in the Galleria. This probably wasn’t the wisest choice for my wallet, but I enjoyed the experience anyways. There were long lines at all the restaurants in the Galleria, but I was traveling solo and as a result, I was able to quickly find a table. The restaurant I picked had one table that sat only one person because of some restriction with the aisle, and I was more than happy to take it! I ordered a Campari Spritz with my meal, which cost a small fortune, but I reasoned it was all part of the experience. Unfortunately, it turns out I hate Campari. Like I said, Aperol isn’t my favourite, but Campari is so much worse. It’s incredibly bitter and while I’m sure it’s an acquired taste, I disliked it so much I didn’t even finish the drink. Oh well, when in Milan…

From the Galleria, I continued walking to see the Teatro alla Scala and the Castello Sforzesco, which is an old castle located in the enormous Parco Sempione. I saved my park exploration for a little bit later in the day and walked over to the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie and the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio. If you’re familiar with Milan, you’ll know that the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie is the home of The Last Supper, which is painted directly on the walls of the church.

I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t realize The Last Supper was located in Milan until a few weeks before my trip. Once I learned, I was keen to buy tickets, only to discover I literally couldn’t. Unfortunately, viewing The Last Supper is pretty much the biggest scam in Milan. The government sells entry tickets months in advance for viewings. They’re all timed and the number of people allowed in the church at a time is limited. Tickets aren’t expensive, only ~15 euro, but because there’s so few of them, they are immediately all purchased by scalpers, whom you must pay anywhere from $150 to $300 for tickets. I’m not sure if I would have been willing to pay this much if given the chance. I did look into purchasing scalped tickets, but due to the influx of visitors for Milan Fashion Week, I literally could not find a single ticket anywhere on the internet for the one day I was in Milan.

I walked to the church anyways because I wanted to see it and thought there might be a slight chance of getting a ticket on location. There was no chance, but it was a pretty church. Sadly I couldn’t go in, so I opted to visit the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio instead. This was a great choice as this church is free to visit and was steeped in history. It was first built in the year 387AD, and re-built in the 11th century. It’s one of the best preserved churches in Milan and it has the most disturbing crypt. Underneath the pulpit is a sarcophagus housing the skeletons of Saint Ambrose, Saint Gervasius and Saint Protasius, still perfectly visible to visitors! Saint Ambrose died in 397AD and it blows my mind that you can see his attired skeleton still resting under the church.

After my little foray into history, I walked back to Parco Sempione and on impulse, made a quick stop into the Museo Pieta Rondanini. It’s a small museum that houses the last (uncompleted) marble statue from Michelangelo in 1564. While unfinished, the statue depicts the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of Jesus. Entry to the exhibit is pretty cheap, so I think it’s worth the visit if you have the time. I was happy to soak in the art history after 2 weeks of hiking.

I finished my day with a walk through the rest of the park to see the arco della pace, before catching the train back to my accommodations. I was tempted to walk the whole way back, but after 16km, my legs were finally starting to tire. I caught the train to the airport the following morning, which concluded my time in Italy. It really was an incredible trip and I’m so glad I made the time to visit Milan before flying home. I haven’t done a lot of traveling by myself, and while I was with Kristine for the majority of my trip, it was a nice experience to spend a few days traveling solo at the end. I enjoyed doing what I wanted when I wanted and I’m keen to go back to Italy one day to see more of the country. I still haven’t been south of Venice, so one day I need to visit Rome and the Amalfi Coast. So much world to explore!

Exploring Marrakech

October 23, 2024October 18, 2024 / Maria / Leave a comment

I paused my posts about my trip to Portugal and Morocco to post about some summer backpacking trips, but it’s time to get back to the Morocco part of my holiday in June! After a week in the Azores, we kicked off the second part of our trip, a week in Marrakech. This was my pick for the trip. I’ve wanted to go to Morocco for a while because it seems quite different than anywhere else I’ve ever been, so we decided to spend a few days in Marrakech and the nearby attractions. Morocco could easily have been a whole trip on its own, but we just did a little taster.

Unfortunately, it was a long day getting there. We left the Azores in the morning and then had a long time at the Lisbon airport before our flight left for Marrakech. We flew with Easyjet and they only run a few flights a week, so it was cheap, but it didn’t leave until evening and ended up being delayed several hours.

I’ll admit I started to feel a little bit weary waiting for our flight. I realized that it was my first time travelling to an Islamic country and we had not packed the appropriate clothing. While waiting for our flight, we read that it’s polite for women to cover their shoulders and avoid short skirts and shorts. It ended up being a bit of a moot point because most of the tourists walked around dressed however they pleased (which is honestly fine), but we didn’t want to attract attention as two women. So I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and we seemed to be the only group of women on the plane.

It all ended up being totally fine. For the most part, we felt safe in Marrakech. I was expecting to witness some petty street crime, such as purse or phone snatching, but we didn’t see any. We did keep our shoulders covered and tried to wear dresses that went to at least our knees, but we didn’t get many comments aside from the odd marriage proposal (which I experience when I lived in Malawi as well). The only thing I didn’t like was the location of our riad.

We arrived in Marrakech pretty late. Our riad sent a car for us, but it was after midnight when we arrived. We stayed in the medina, which is the central part of the old city of Marrakech. The old city is walled and dates back to the 11th century, while the new city is a lot like any other city you’ve been to. The medina is quite chaotic in the daytime, with lots of vendors and tourists, but at night it’s pretty quiet. The medina is filled with riads, which are small hotels with a series of rooms centered around a small garden courtyard. Our riad was central, but it was down a side street and required walking through a few narrow alleys. We didn’t have any incidents, but as two solo females, I would definitely be more cognizant to book directly on a main road in the future.

We immediately went to bed and slept in on our first day in the city. The breakfast from the riad was excellent and we ate it around the small pool in the courtyard. The riad has lots of outdoor space and a little rooftop lounge, so it was a nice place to hang out after dark.

One of the things that immediately surprised us about Morocco was the language. Moroccans speak a lot of languages. I knew that Arabic was the official language and most people speak Moroccan Arabic, also known as Darija. What I didn’t know is that a lot of Moroccans also speak French due to the period of French colonial rule between 1912 and 1956. On top of that, a lot of people also speak English, as well as some form of Moroccan Berber. We were able to get by mostly with English, but it was really nice to have our French to fall back on for a change.

Our main plan for our first day was to go on a walking tour and to find some cash. Our walking tour met at Koutoubia Mosque, which is one of the most central places in the city. By law, none of the buildings in the city can be taller than the mosque, so you can see it from pretty much everywhere. Like the city, the mosque is over almost 1000 years old, though it has been rebuilt several times and sustained damage in Morocco’s most recent earthquake in the Fall of 2023. It only recently re-opened, but we couldn’t enter as it’s used strictly for prayer.

Our guide took us around to many of the central attractions, including some of the many souks. A souk is basically a market and there are all kinds of them all over the city. There’s meat markets, spice markets, and textile markets. We walked through the Kasbah and the Jewish Quarter, and past the Bahia Palace, which we later re-visited. One of the most well known attractions is the Jemaa el-Fnaa market, which is basically a huge square in the medina for commerce, and is recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site. In the day, it seemed to be mostly fruit drink vendors, but it expands a lot in the evening with small restaurants and performers.

I seem to have had bad luck with money this year, because after a very challenging time finding cash in Argentina, we had similar bad luck in Morocco. Similar to Argentina, it’s not possible to get Moroccan currency (the dirham) in advance of your trip. But unlike Argentina, this is because it’s a closed currency, rather than a volatile one. There’s not the same problems with conversion rates, but some of the banks do charge hefty transaction fees. We read that the only bank that doesn’t is Al-Farid Bank, so we were keen to find an ATM.

We did exchange a little bit of money in the airport to tide us over. There is an al-farid bank right in Jemaa el-Fnaa, but we were dismayed to discover that one of the ATMs was out of cash (it was a Sunday), and the other was rejecting transactions. I was even more pissed to discover when I got home that the bank charged me for 2 cash withdrawal transactions, even though the ATM never dispensed any money. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around through the market, but not purchasing anything, until we finally found another ATM and were able to put our money woes to rest.

Shopping in the medina is definitely an experience. If you’re going to shop there, you have to haggle, and it can be a bit of an overwhelming process. I used to haggle in Malawi all the time, but I was a poor student back then. I’ve gotten more and more uncomfortable with it the older I’ve gotten and the more financially secure I’ve become. It seems stupid to haggle with someone over $1 or $2, when it will really make no difference to me in the long run, and potentially make their lives easier.

But you can’t be a pushover in Morocco. The gulf between an item’s starting price and its worth is quite large. We read that whatever someone starts with, you should aim to pay half, and therefore you need to go down to a third of the price with your first counteroffer. This seemed somewhat accurate to our experiences, although we weren’t great at negotiating the price in half and generally ended up somewhere closer to 60-70%. It just feels so insulting to try and negotiate the price down so low, and the vendors always act insulted too. It’s all part of the dance, but it’s exhausting. Definitely don’t ask someone the price of something unless you’re ready to barter, because once you express interest in purchasing, the vendors are relentless.

Our very first experience was probably the worst, the seller was extremely pushy, and we worried the whole experience would be that way, but fortunately most vendors would back off after some light negotiation if you want to walk away. The most useful advice I read is to never buy something if it doesn’t feel right. It’s easy to get pressured into a sale once you start to engage, but it’s still your choice and you can always choose to walk away. You don’t owe anyone anything.

While Jemaa el-Fnaa is a central location, the entire medina and beyond seem to be one big market, broken into smaller souks. We spent a lot of time in Souk Semmarine, which is the textile market, but also explored down towards the Bahia Palace. We didn’t buy much on our first day, but we scoped out what we were interested in. Later in the trip, we ended up each buying a purse, I got some pants, and we both got a lot of knick knacks, like painted dishware. Some things were weirdly expensive (likely we got the white person rate), while other things were really cheap.

We picked a nice rooftop restaurant for lunch and had probably the best meal of the trip. The food in Morocco is delicious and extremely flavourful, although it does get a bit repetitive after a while. The most common dish is Tajine, which is basically different types of meat, and sometimes vegetable or egg, cooked in stoneware. Meat kebabs were also popular and it was pretty easy to eat vegetarian if you wanted, but the meals seemed to be either very meat heavy, or have no meat at all. At this restaurant, I had a chicken tajine where the chicken was cooked with caramelized onion, fig, pear, walnuts, cinnamon, and it was sooo yummy.

The timing of our trip, during the first week of June, was definitely not ideal from a weather perspective. Morocco is in the desert, so it receives little rain, but it gets really hot in the summer. It wasn’t as hot as it would get, but it was still mid 30’s most days, so I would definitely recommend going a bit earlier in the Spring. Most days, we returned to the riad in the late afternoon for a dip in the pool to cool down before dinner.

I think I’ll end the post here for now as I’ve covered a lot of information about the city. After the first day, we did a few day trips outside the city, so check back for that!

A Week in the Azores: Sao Miguel West

September 4, 2024September 13, 2024 / Maria / 4 Comments

Continuing on from my blog posts about Portugal, we had a lazy morning in Lisbon and treated ourselves to brunch before starting the second part of our trip. We had ~2 weeks and decided to each pick a location to visit for 1 week. Emily’s choice was the Azores, which is a group of Portuguese islands in the middle of the Atlantic. They seem to be a popular vacation destination among Europeans, but I don’t think the rest of the world has really discovered them yet.

In contrast, the other popular Portuguese island is Madeira, which is located off the coast of Morocco. Me and Seth had an awesome time exploring Madeira in 2012, but the rest of the world has discovered it now and it’s heavily over-visited. That’s not to say the Azores isnt’t a popular destination. We visited in the tail end of shoulder season, so it was still busy without being overly crowded, but we could tell the tourism was about to pick up.

The Azores are made up of several islands, each with unique features to explore. We opted to visit Sao Miguel Island, which has the largest city, Ponta Delgada, and seems to be the hub. It’s a direct flight from Lisbon (2.5 hours) and we arrived around 3pm. If you stay in Ponta Delgada, you might be able to get away without renting a car, but I definitely recommend it. There’s limited transit and the easiest way to explore the island is by car.

We picked up our car and were immediately intimidated by the narrow streets. The highway system is pretty good, but the town streets are extremely narrow, so be prepared to drive slow and stop frequently to let other cars pass. We opted not to stay in Ponta Delgada and had a nice B&B booked in the tiny village of Porto Formoso. The Azores are very hilly, with lots of steep roads. Our B&B was located on one of these roads, but had the most beautiful view of the beach from the balcony (see above)! It’s a gorgeous location and I’m glad we decided to stay there.

We didn’t have too long to settle in before driving to the nearby town of Ribeira Grande to stock up on groceries. We found a nice restaurant near the beach and had dinner while we watched the sunset. It was a beautiful day, but we were quickly distracted by the menu. The Azores is known for its seafood and we intended to take full advantage of that fact! We were advised to always get the special because that is generally the freshest fish. In this case, the special was a spread of 3 grilled fish and vegetables to be shared between 2 people. It was absolutely delicious and we added a plate of limpets as a starter. I’ve only ever had limpets in Madeira (it’s a shellfish) and they were as good as I remembered.

Since the Azores are located smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic, the weather can be pretty variable. The key to a successful trip is to do your best to try and plan around the weather. The island has installed webcams at all the major viewpoints so that you can check the visibility before visiting. We knew our first day was likely to be the best weather of the trip, so we had to decide what to prioritize. I was most excited about Sete Cidades, so we decided to do a road trip to the west side of the island on Day 1.

It was a beautiful blue sky day, but there were some clouds hanging around the Sete Cidades viewpoint, so we decided to hit up some other attractions on the way over. The island isn’t that big (it’s maybe ~2.5 hours to drive lengthwise), and there are frequent pull-outs on the roads for visitors. We stopped at several viewpoints along the drive and had our first proper stop at Ponta da Ferraria.

Ponta da Ferraria is a rocky point on the west end of the island that has a salt water hot spring at low tide. The hot spring naturally flows into the ocean and when the tide is low enough, it turns into a big hot pool. Low tide was around noon, so we arrived at 11am and did a short walk down to the pool. It’s all black volcanic rock in this area and there’s a small inlet where they’ve installed ladders to climb down. It wasn’t busy when we arrived, so I’m glad we went early because when we left at noon, it was very crowded.

This is the only salt water hot spring I’ve ever visited, so it was a cool experience. It’s a little more chaotic because of the waves. The rock naturally acts as a barrier, but the tide still sloshes you around a bit in the pool. But it’s great for temperature control. It’s very hot near the inlet, and cooler as you move out towards the ocean. We soaked for a while and then continued on our adventure for the day.

After some more viewpoints, we stopped into Sete Cidades town for lunch. Since Sete Cidades is one of the main tourist attractions, I thought the town would be a bustling touring trap with lots of shops and restaurants. This was not the case as all. There’s only really 2 restaurants – the one in town is highly rated, but was full – so we opted for the restaurant on the lake, which is scenic, but very poorly rated. Mostly it’s just very busy, so it’s not great service, but it is what it is.

Sete Cidades is essentially a giant crater with a series of lakes inside it and tons of viewpoints around the perimeter. I really wanted to hike around the rim of the crater, but it’s a long hike without 2 cars (~20km), so we opted to sample a little bit of everything in Sao Miguel rather than go all in on one hike. But I still think about this hike, so I might have to go back for it one day.

After lunch, we drove up out of the crater to visit Miradouro da Boca do Inferno. This is probably the most iconic viewpoint on the island, and it was my favourite part of the trip. It’s a short hike to the viewpoint, and you can stop at Lagoa da Canario along the way. As a heads up, none of these lakes are really swimming lakes, so plan to do your swimming at the salt water beaches. The view from the Miradouro is absolutely incredible and we hung out there for a while before continuing our tour.

We visited a few more viewpoints and then drove to Mosteiros for the rest of the day. It’s the most westerly town on the island and we spent time at Mosteiros Beach in the late afternoon. It’s a gorgeous black sand beach and to our surprise, the water was quite warm! It was only ~18-20 degrees while we were in the Azores. We thought it would be a bit chilly, but it’s so humid on the island that we were still sweating every day. Likewise, we thought the ocean would be too cold to swim in, but it was comfortable, you just have to be wary of rip tides at a lot of the beaches, so we stuck to the shallows. We finished the day with another seafood dinner and then returned to our B&B for the evening.

On our second day, it was pretty cloudy in the morning, so we did a short walk to the Porto Formoso waterfall and to check out our local beach – Praia dos Moinhos. There are tons of beaches all over the island, but we were definitely partial to ours, which is one of the better swimming beaches because it doesn’t have a ton of surf. It was totally empty in the morning.

Our next stop was Caldeira Velha, which is a natural hot spring in the middle of the island. This was the one thing we should have booked in advance as there is timed entry to the pools. We paid for entry later in the day and visited Salto do Cabrito, which is a popular waterfall nearby. Everyone parks at the top of the canyon and walks down, without realizing you can drive almost all the way to the waterfall, so that’s a tip if you visit.

After Sete Cidades, the viewpoint at Lagoa do Fogo is probably the next most popular viewpoint. It’s near the hot spring, so we decided to drive up and hope for the best. It was still pretty cloudy when we got there, but the clouds moved around a lot and we caught a glimpse of the lake. It wasn’t ideal conditions, but we were happy with what we saw. I’d recommend hiking down to the lake, which is a short walk, but we didn’t have time before our hot spring entry. We were able to drive up to the viewpoint, but during the summer months, they close the parking lot and you have to take a bus shuttle to visit after June 1st.

The Caldeira was really nice – it’s located under the forest canopy and there’s 3 hot pools cascading into one another, plus one cold pool with a waterfall. It’s great for hot/cold therapy and we switched back and forth between the two, enjoying our hour lounging in the pools.

But our favourite part of the day was returning to Porto Formoso in the afternoon to go to the beach. The clouds continued to hang around Lagoa do Fogo, but it was a gorgeous day along the coast (a common phenomenon on the island). It’s a sandy beach, with a few beachgoers, but overall, it was pretty empty throughout our trip. We spent the rest of the afternoon lying in the sand and swimming in the ocean.

We returned to the B&B and enjoyed a bottle of wine on the balcony before walking to the only restaurant nearby, Mare Cheia. Porto Formoso is tiny, so I definitely would not have gone to this restaurant if it wasn’t a 5 minute walk away, which would have been a real shame because it was the best food we had on the island. We ended up eating there twice!

Once you’re seated, the waiter brings out a platter of raw fish to show you everything fresh that they’re serving for the day. It’s fantastic! So me and Emily each picked a fish and then they grill it fresh for you! We got the limpets again because I’m a little obsessed. It was worth it and these were even better than the other restaurant. It blows my mind that the limpets are like $20, but you get 2 dozen of them! It was a perfect end to some pretty perfect weather. Check back next week (Part II) to hear about some of the less than perfect weather!