Dinner in Milan, Itlay

Milan is a beautiful city, specialty famous for exhibition, expo and business meetings. The city is a complete mixture of different nationalities and almost everywhere you can find the English translations of boards, menu and advertisements.

The plan is to have a Italian style dinner in the center of town in an old famous Italian restaurant. Make the booking before on weekends as the restaurants are fully crowded and people queue outside for a place. The restaurant chosen is Santa Marta restaurant, near Duomo (city center).

Italian style: Italian are really good eaters, I haven't seen any other who eat this much amount and spend 3-4 hours just for dinner.

The booking s made form 08:00 pm and that's actually little early time for locals to eat dinner, the dinner actually starts from 08:30 and goes till midnight. The menu are with a 2 types of starters,some bread and snacks are on the table all the time, then comes the white or red wine, then a middle dish of pasta and finally the main dish,lastly there is sweet. The service is repetitively slow,may be just to make the food digested till the next dish come. Finishing everything from the plate is a common practice and locals eat everything whatever served.

See whats offered in a restaurant in Italian way.

starter bread, the back one is really nice,its like bread baked and then dried .

Potato snacks are crispy and I think a paste of potato with flavor is deep fried

4 different style of marinated fish with vinegar, olive and salt and steamed prawn in the middle

steamed vegetables with olive oil

Pasta with a fish sauce

small pasta with a tomato sauce

Fried Fish with lemon, nice taste but not sure what type of fish it taste like chicken and feel like the fish meat is pressed in this shape and then fried

Steamed spinach with salt. Little garlic and yogurt would make it good

Soft cookies made form white part of egg 

I could hardly eat half the things,but I think they offer according to local eating style.

Lugano, Switzerland

If you are in Milan, the best thing you can do is to to travel to city LUGANO, its in north of Italy and less than 100 Km from Milan.

The easiest way is to take a direct train from MILAN CENTRAL STATION (centrale) to Lugoano , which takes nearly hour

Milan railway station (centrale)

Train at Milan

and 10 min and cost 23 Euro one way. The train is fast and run German and Italian company. There are many options of train but better take the train which is going to Zurich and Lugano is a stop in between,

 Lugano Train Station

Lugano train station

View from the train

Its a  small city surrounded by white top mountains and three sides covered with the Lugano lake, the lake is huge enough to give a view of a sea. The nature, cleanliness and street view is just marvelous and can't be expressed in words.

 Street view Lugano

Walking towards the Lake

From the train station, take the exit from the right (the main building) and go down the street till towards the lake, it takes nearly 10 min to reach to the lake by walking. The streets have old style shops and beautifully decorated cafes. There is McDonald just in front of the lake view. 

Restaurant on the streets of Lugano

 Lake 

food street 

Pumpkin sweet selling on the street

Walk as much as you can on the pedestrian walk lanes near the lake and every view is spectacular. Don't forget to walk inside the town center and small streets connecting the center hall, there are multiple street vendors and shops which offers some unique things like food and souvenirs. When you get tired then walk to the shopping mall named MANOR LUGANO, it has 5 floors and sells almost everything from electronics, cosmetics to clothing, There is also a supermarket in the -1 floor and you can find many cheap swiss/Italian chocolates and snacks.

Manor shopping mall

There are many things to see in the city and main attraction can be seen within 4 hours but time spent  sitting next to lake and enjoying the lake view is just uncountable. 

 Foutain next the lake and good wished from me ( have a wonderful travel)

Milan before the travel

Lets get ready to travel Milan, Issues are
1- Which airport to take
2- How will I reach Center
3- Where to stay
4- How much it will cost
From search on internet and information from friends staying in Milan, I am up to following knowledge
1- Its not actually a tourist city and mostly famous for expo and business meeting, just a church and few ruins form Roman empire can be the tourist attraction.
2- Its not safe in night and Mian people are clever to cheat you.
3- Its highly overrated city and few night stay will cost more then any average EU city.
4- Its mixture of many nationalities and I will experience something mixture for many foreigners living in this city.

First things First>>>>>WHICH airport
MILAN has 3 airports
1-Malpensa airport, (MXP) it is located East of Milan and most of the International flight uses this airport
2-Linate airport, nearest from the  center of the city and often used for domenstic flights in Italy
3- Bergamo airport, its located west of Milan and actually its not for city Milann but many cheap airlines uses this airport and show it as Milan airport in their websites.
So It is decided that I will be using the MXP airport by Czech Airlines from Prague to Milan,
How to reach Center
The train leaves every 30 min from the MXP airport and cost 12 Euro per one way and 18Euro for 2 way. Thejourney takes 30 min without stops and 45 min if train make stops. The train station is located at terminal 1.time table and online tickets can be found here http://www.malpensaexpress.it/it/malpensa-express/home.aspx
The buses are also available and takes nearly 1 hour to reach to the central station and cost 8-10 Euro.
Where to stay
I book hotel from www.booking.com and found Milan really expensive. even 2 or 3 star hotels are nearly 70Euro per night. I like staying near the center so I can see the city in night walking but Milan reviews shows that center parts are not soo safe in the night and it will be a difficult choice to make, but Metro looks like goes every where in the city.
Hopefully 300 Euro for 3 nights with food will be a good deal.
Things to see
very short choice
1- Milan cathedral
2- Roman ruins
3- Sforza castle


Hope to have a good stay. I will share my experience after travel