The city of beautiful people

Bongiorno ! (that is about as far as the extent of my grasp on the language reaches)

A slight delay in posting, due to me saying farwell to Switzerland and starting my backpacking trip though Italy !

The hardest part was saying goodbye to my Mum :(

I left Geneva early on Friday morning, after spending a good four hours trying to stuff six weeks worth of outfits into one 7kg bag. I took the train from Switzerland to Italy, where in no time at all, it speed through a plethora of amazing snow capped mountain and lush green hills and arrived in the city of Milan.



Now, I don't want to be all negative and say I hated Milan as soon as I got there... but I kind of did. It was dirty. Really, really dirty. Pulling into the main train station all you could see was grafitti and litter, tents set up for gypsies to live in and beggars roaming the streets with their cheap braclets and toys.
I just couldn't imagine someone like Victoria Beckam actually wanting to come here to shop for fashion !


LUCKILY, just like a new pair of shoes which start off too tight, by the end of the day I got used to the quirks of the Milan and the city of fashion  had most certainly grown on me and cast me under it's spell.

My first point of interest to visit was the Duomo di Milano. Duomo means cathedral, so basically I went to go look at a big church. Unfortunately due to my "attire" I wasn't allowed in, which I found so unfair because I am sure Jesus would be a fan of demin shorts.

The Cathedral square was swarming with tourists, pigeons and beggars. I prefered to stand back and admire the amazing architecture of the building and the just be baffled at the work and effort that went in to carving the ornate designs and torrents.

I then wandered through many streets in the area known as the 'fashion district' of Milan.
Can you imagine my brain exploding as I saw all the beautifully designed pieces of art couture clothing in the windows as I walked past?!
Now, as fortune may have it, it turns out that it was actually Fashion Week in Milan on the day that I was there. I know, can you believe it? I can now say I was in Milan for fashion week, oh my god.
Therefore, every single person I walked past on the street was dressed absolutely exquisitely. Just by looking at them, you could tell that there was a great deal of time and planning and money put into their designer outfits so that the shade of purple of their shoes matched their belt or the gold studs on their bag complimented the detailing on their jumper.

Clearly she knows how to get out of a fine

 Walking back through the main plaza of Milan, with its gold gilded archways and artisically painted ceilings, I saw a crowd had formed otutside one of the restaurants. Eager to see what the fuss was about, I walked over and followed suit of everyone in the mass by pulling out my camera. Turns out it was a Brazillian supermodel doing a couture photoshoot in the middle of the main shopping strip !

Due to the growing crowd, two police officers came over to ask the photographer to move along... and ended up being in part of the shoot with her !

In the plaza there is also a 'lucky stone' which local legend says that if you stand on it and turn around in a circle, you will have good luck for a year !

After a couple more hours getting lost in the streets admiring the fashion, I bought myself a little peice of tradition in the form of a slice of zucchini pizza and called it a night :)









Milan is really quite an extraordinary city because you have the richest of the rich, living right alongside the poorest of the poor. I was slightly taken aback and just baffled that I can look in one direction and see enough Louis Vuitton scarfs, bags and sunglases to satisfy even Jessica Simpson's insane demands and then to look in the other and see a frail, old woman begging for change so she could buy food. By the end of my stay in Milan, I was still unsure as to how I felt about seeing these two extremes in such a close parallel- however, I would have to say overall I enjoyed Milan and most certainly now have the urge to wear tassles on my shoes and oversize my sunglasses/bag/hats.