CnC Living Travel log: Wandering around Milan and Basel

One of my favorite ways to get to know a city is to walk its streets.

Milan is a wonderful walking city and it is great to begin a leisurely walking tour at Il Duomo (I wrote about Il Duomo and the la Rinascente department store here) to take in glorious views, delicious food, and beautiful pieces of history.  One of the things I appreciate so much about Manhattan at and lament about in more ancient cities is the lack of a grid structure.  Streets may run haphazardly into each other and may be perpendicular at one point, but parallel at other points.  It may get somewhat confusing to walk around and my husband was already conscious of referring to the map so often (that’s not him below though, that’s just some dude).

Tip: Always have  a physical or digital map handy to have a general sense of the area and stay on course.  If you get lost, try to find a hotel.  There is a good chance the concierge will speak English and can point you in the right direction.

We would start off from Centrale station, which is just a beautiful station with ancient grand pillars, but modern conveniences like luggage belts by the stairs as well.
We took time to just sit back and people watch as well.

Heyyy Romeo!

Or have tiramisu.  Italy? Tiramisu? Ohhhh yeah (healthy eating pause for vacation!) This was at Cantina della Ventra and it was a great, restaurant with solid food and efficient, friendly service.

I had serious, trench regret after seeing this woman’s trench coat. This was right after I turned down the most exquisite Burberry trench coat at an outlet store (it was still very pricey). Burberry trench coat, I’m coming for you some day!

We took a train ride to visit my friend in Basel, Switzerland for a few days.  The four hour ride through the mountains was really relaxing and it was so cool to pass by snow capped mountains and waterfalls!

Basel is Switzerland’s third most populous city with a bit over 500,000 inhabitants (800,000 if you count its suburbs in France and Germany!)

This city in the center of Switzerland, France and Germany is known for its vibrant museums as well as booming pharmaceuticals industry.  I have fewer pictures here because of the rain, but did like the courtyard of the Kuntmuseum.

I hope you enjoyed taking a tour of Milan and Basel with me! I had an unfortunate incident at Paper Moon restaurant (err, uncooked meat is not cool), but they are offering to invite me back as their guest so maybe I’ll be back some day!  Either way, both Milan and Basel were beautiful cities and I am happy to share more tips if you need any!

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