Italy-Milan

My first stop in Italy, Milan. 

Milan Cathedral
Duomo di Milano

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Unsuspecting building tucked in a corner of the plaza...

...in which was hidden a 7-storey shopping place.

Random structure

Wild berries & cacao gelato

There wasn't much sightseeing to be done in Milan. The most famous one is the Duomo, located right next to the Galleria. These two places were done in under an hour. And I was left dangling, didn't know where to go next as I didn't expect it would be so quick. So, decided to visit a shopping place that was newly opened and featured in a magazine I picked up.

And I immediately regretted that decision. 

There were barely any street signs around and I don't understand why the Italians are so secretive in labeling the street and building names. You won't know the name of a particular building until you are right in front of the entrance. This really doesn't help when I'm trying to find my way around the place. In the end, I spent over half an hour searching in the area, only to find out that the place is located about 200m from the Galleria, right under my nose!

La Rinascente. 

The exterior of the building suggests nothing of a shopping place, and the signage is totally inconspicuous!

Anyways, the shopping place held all the high end brands such as LV, Dior, blah blah. So you can imagine how unexciting it was for me. The only thing I enjoyed here was lunch, and it was the best I had throughout the whole trip. An order of angus beef fillet with grilled vegetables and sautéed potatoes. Yum!

That pretty much wraps up Milan. I would say it didn't leave me a good impression. In fact, I got cheated on the very first day! In the central station, there were these bunch of people who targeted unwary tourists that just arrived. And in the main tourist spots, there were also dozens who either gives you feed for the pigeons or push some kind of trinket onto you and ask for coins. They can get really pushy at times. I'm just glad I didn't get pick-pocketed.