We boarded the train for our journey to Italy, Milan specifically , after spending 12 days seeing Switzerland by rail. The train ride to Milan was just as lovely as our previous train rides. We had been in rail stations all around Switzerland, especially Zurich HB, so getting off the train at Milano Centrale was a bit of a cultural shock, especially when we couldn’t figure out how to get out of the station and trying to find a friendly face for help ended up being the Italian Police!

The actual location of our hotel would be our next surprise, but as they say, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and that was definitely the case with this hotel. The hotel had incredibly friendly and helpful personnel, and the better part of town was really only two streets away. Our favorite was visiting the Duomo from the outside, inside, and top of the roof over our two days on our own, which included our typical hop-on, hop-off bus ride!