Week 1
Week 1: Budget Deficit
When
4.10.2019 - 11.10.2019
Where
London, UK
Milan, IT
Bellagio, IT
What
After the ever-debilitating long-haul flight from Sydney, we started our year long trip away with a weekend in London. Our first morning we woke wildly early due to the jet lag and went for a quiet Saturday morning stroll from Limehouse to Tower Bridge along the Thames Path. We ended up stumbling across all the ‘must see’ attractions in London on our way to good coffee or good food. We wound our way along the cobbled streets to Brick Lane where Pat was told he was not to leave London without eating at its oldest Bagel house, Beigel Bake: it’s safe to say we visited a couple of times over the weekend. After wondering around Shoreditch and Hackney and clocking a wild 12 km’s before breakfast we settled in at Visions Canteen for smashed avo and real (read: Australian standard) coffee before heading across town to do an afternoon of museum-ing. Natural History, Science and Victoria & Albert museums back to back was enough to give us early onset ‘gallery foot’ so we headed back to the apartment to freshen up before dinner. Pat had booked St. John, a nose to tail foodies paradise, months in advance as a little celebratory dinner to commence our adventure. The food was absolutely awesome - and is certainly Bourdain approved. Sunday we set out walking again, this time doing the tourist loop around the city and heading back to the bustling Sunday Markets at Brick Lane. After another mammoth day of walking we grabbed our bags and headed to Gatwick for our extremely early (and cheap) flight to Bergamo, Milan.
Milan was a beautiful Italian dream with a small nightmare in the middle. We needed to go to Italy to enact our Under 30 working holiday visa’s which we were falsely told would be an expedient and extremely straightforward process. And what a brainless, bureaucratic, befuddlement that experience was. The centrally located Questra Immigrazione (Immigration office) is a kafkaesque nightmare of extended queues, distracted officials, and seemingly illogical rules. We went prepared. We went early. None of that mattered. After waiting in line for 3 hours just to get into the building we were sent away immediately to get bank cheques from the post office to pay our lodgement fees. For some reason the police are no longer allowed to handle payments. So after 2 trips to the post office and a total of 8 hours waiting in lines and rooms, getting tickets and fingerprinting, we were cheerfully told our paperwork was completed and we would receive our confirmation in Novemeber…or maybe December…Oddio!
If you want to read our guide to Vintage Shopping in Milan, click here
On the other days, the temperate weather and glorious blue skies meant we were walking somewhere between 25 an 30,000 steps a day, crossing the beautiful city from wall to wall. We took a day trip to Lake Como by train and ferry to see Bellagio and ate and drank to our hearts content. This glorious week was only marred by a huge amount of spending on our part - firmly pushing above our weekly budget. Oh well! What can you do? (but tighten belts and not eat out so often?) If you want to read our guide to Coffee in Milan, click here.
Wanna read more about Milan? Hit up our guide to eating and drinking in the city here.
Friday night we took a late flight back to Gatwick. After a delay to push back due to passengers squabbling about overhead locker space, we were back in the UK late and found ourselves eating a late night hotel burger and a pint to wash it down to wrap up our first week.
Pit
8 hours in the Questura Milano Ufficio Immigrazione and the surprise visa fees that accompanied it.
Peak
Il Brutto Anatroccolo Tratoria Milano
A very long and stressful week of travel during a global pandemic.