Although I did include Milan, Lake Como was really the star of the show during this leg of the trip. As I explained in the last post, this was a last minute addition for us. We were intending on going from Florence straight to Paris, but due to the incredibly high cost (I’m talking like $900 for a plane ticket) we decided to add Milan and then catch the overnight bus from Milan to Paris.

We arrived in Milan around 10 pm and took the hike to a hotel that was also found on Priceline for very cheap. Now I’m a proud person and I’m especially proud of all of the work that I put into this trip and was 95% successful, but even I’ll admit I dropped the ball on this one😂 this hotel was gross. It was the only time on the entire trip this far that we’ve felt remotely unsafe (not really for any reason, we just did) and it was not really clean, the shower was cold, and the “breakfast” was greatly overstated. Like I said, I don’t usually drop the ball but my desire to “save money” on this addition to the trip apparently won out over the part of me that wanted a hot shower. We got there and went straight to bed, because we had a big day to Lake Como the next day.

The train tickets from Milan to Lake Como were only about €8 each and the train ride is around 1.5 hours. We got on an early train and made our way over there. Immediately, we knew we had made the right decision. Lake Como is absolutely breathtaking. We got there and walked to the trailhead for our HIKE!! We hiked all the way up to the top of the mountain where we got the most amazing view of the lake and all of the color changing trees.

It was a hot one. The trail wasn’t super easy, and originally Evan was pretty grumpy about the steep incline😂 but by the time we made it up, he was happy again (or did a good job faking it). We turned around and headed back down. When we got to the bottom, we caught a bus for a 45 minute ride to Bellagio, one of the bigger cities on the coast of Como. We walked all around the city trying to find a place to rent a boat for a couple of hours, but we couldn’t find the place we were looking for so decided to give it up and get some made to order pasta, gelato, and head to the beach.

We rode the bus back to the train station and caught the train back to Milan! Full transparency, we ate McDonalds when we got back because nothing else was open and I had one of the best Caesar salads ever (McDonald’s there hits different than at home) and then headed back to the gross hotel😂

The next day we tried to rest up because we knew we had the treacherous overnight bus ride looming in front of us (I won’t spoil too much). We explored downtown Milan and I don’t have too many pictures somehow but it was actually way cooler than I expected. For lunch, we got the largest sandwich known to man. And by largest I mean this thing was huge. Mammoth. It took up the whole plate. We each got our own, and it was so filling it Lowkey put us in a bad mood 😂. After eating the monster sandwich- If you’re ever in Milan, the restaurant “Toast Amore” isn’t avocado toast, it’s giant sandwiches- we walked the city. We went into the Dior bookstore and browsed some cute coffee table books, we found the fancy part of town where the Chanel, Prada, Louis Vuitton , etc were and then we found this super cool market at the top floor of a building.

At the rooftop, I got a mocktail and we hung out and enjoyed the sun.

We shopped more on the way back and I found 10€ on the ground, which I used to buy a sweet treat, and it was time to grab our luggage from the luggage lockers (it’s a really cool thing that they do over here and has saved our backs so many times) and took a train to catch our bus.

Now spoiler alert, we have been on another overnight bus ride since then because we’re crazy and broke, but the overnight bus ride is not for the faint of heart. We boarded and looked for our seats, just to find out we were somehow on the BACK row with 5 seats across (every other row had 2) so we were snuggling with our row-mates. That would have been fine, except for who our seat mates were. I’m not going to go into details because I really don’t want to be mean, but they truly didn’t smell good. And it was for 10 hours. The bus was freezing cold, and although I did fall asleep every hour or so the driver would stop to smoke and yell out over the microphone how long of a stop it would be. And each time that we stopped overnight to let people off, he turned the lights on.

We got to Metz, France at 5:55 am. We walked to the train station and were relieved to find that the Starbucks was open at 6. We helped ourselves to a croissant and a coffee, warmed up and waited around until our next bus left at 8:30 to take us to Paris.

That just about sums up the trip to Milan and Lake Como! Lake Como: 10/10. Evan and I definitely agreed that it would be absolutely immaculate to have a summer house or some sort of place there to bring our family, kids, and friends to. The culture and life there is absolutely breathtaking (I see why so many people get married there) and we could have spent a week there, especially in the heat of the summer when it would be hot enough to need to swim- we did swim, but the water was cold! Milan, we’re unsure about the rating. The overnight bus really put rain on our parade😂

But I absolutely recommend a couple things:

1. Visit Lake Como and do the amazing hike, eat good food, and just enjoy the lazy and relaxing lifestyle.

2. Book tickets to Paris months or even YEARS in advance if trying to go 😂

3. Take the overnight buses at your own risk🤒

Happy traveling!!!