Well it began when I met Tracey at 6pm at Green Park Tube station and we headed over to Hammersmith to see the Counting Crows play. She had a spare ticket and kindly donated it to me as it would make it easier for us to organise getting to the airport etc if I was with her. So we went and saw them play and they were really good. I've always liked their music so it was good to see them live. The concert finished at about 10:30pm so we jumped on the tube out to Liverpool Street to get the Stanstead Express out to Stanstead Airport. We arrived at the airport at 12:30am so we found ourselves some seats - luckily ones where there were no arm rests so we could stretch out across a couple of seats and tried to get a little sleep. I think I managed to get about 2 hours in total between 1am and 5am but it wasn't good sleep so by the time we boarded the plane, Tracey and I had crashed before we'd even taken off! I remember the air hostess beginning the safety demonstration but that it! The next thing I knew, we were landing 2 hours later and I'd slept the whole way. As we landed the pilot told us it was -2 degrees outside and there was lots of ice on the ground from the snow and I realised that I hadn't packed enough warm clothes. I'd been expecting weather a little warmer than London not colder! The airport was tiny and in a town called Bergamo, about an hour away from Milan so we boarded a bus for the journey into Milan and managed to figure out the metro system easily and then found our hotel. After a nice hot shower and putting on every layer of clothing I had with me, we headed into the main piazza of Milan, the Piazzo Duomo. The Duomo is the huge cathedral that is in the centre of the city and everything kind of merges off it. We had some pizza for lunch - hey, when in Italy... and then started shopping. On Saturday, we were a little disappointed by it all. Checked out some designer stores - prada, louis Vuitton etc but of course, completely and utterly above anything I could afford. And after a few shops like that, you just get a bit "oh it's only $300 for a scarf!" and sick of it. So we hit the more affordable stores but the truth is, there wasn't really anything unusual or something that I would expect only to find in Milan. So disappointing. There was some kind of celebration in Milan that day also and I think the whole city was out in force to celebrate in costumes and popping party poppers and spraying string and stuff around, throwing confetti etc. It was mad and in our exhausted state, the last thing Tracey and I really wanted. So at about 4pm we went back to the hotel and crashed for a few hours before dragging ourselves out of bed to go and get some dinner at a local pizzeria. Now they couldn't speak english and our Italian was minute so there was problems when we both tried to order pizza. Tracey ended up with a huge pizza with tomato, cheese, olives and anchovies and I'd ordered one with tomato, cheese and proscuitto - and only ended up with a plate of proscuitto! Imagine my suprise! Trying to explain to a waiter that it wasn't what I meant - I'd expected pizza but he obviously thought we would share the pizza and I'd put the proscuitto on my bit of it. So as I can't face anchovies, Tracey had a huge pizza and I ate proscuitto and bread! Not quite what I'd planned. Was saved at dessert though as I ate amazing profiterols so it wasn't a huge loss. We crashed at about 10pm - very early - but neither of us had the energy to go out and I woke when my alarm went off at 9:30am the following morning. Sunday was a much better day. For starters it was warmer. We had breakfast at the hotel - croissants, bread rolls, ham, cheese, fruit etc (your typical European breakfast) - and then took our time getting out as we didn't have to check out until midday. So we headed back into the Piazza Duomo and shopped again. This time we stuck to our price range and had a good time, trying clothes on and even buying a few. I bought myself a lovely brown top that I can't really describe to you without it sounding strange. I'll just have to take a photo of me in it to show you! And Tracey bought some trousers and a few tops. The truth is though, that it was stuff we could have easily got in London. But we had fun anyway. We headed out to where we had to catch the bus and had dinner at a little restaurant there. Had lasagne which was nice. By the time we'd eaten dinner, it was time to get the 6:45pm bus to the airport. Our plane didn't leave until 10:20pm so we sat around and read - there was nothing except a tiny giftshop at the airport - although I laughed because in the shop, there was some Asti Martini - my favourite wine - and I haven't seen it over here at all! Typical that in a tiny place like that, you find something you recognise. (In Allicante, I found Dove chocolate which isn't over here either!). As we were lining up to board the plane, it started snowing so while everyone else was running to the plane, Tracey and I were excited about the snow and she was taking photos of us both in it and of the plane covered in snow. She's going to email them to me so I'll send them to you. We took off and I slept half the way back to London (notice a theme about me and planes?). By the time I got home and was crawling into bed, it was nearly 2am so a long weekend. So that's what we did. I will say that I did end up enjoying the weekend but Milan was definately not what I expected. It was a very ugly city - the only attractive bit was the Duomo and the shops in that area. The shopping wasn't great - well nothing you couldn't get in London - even the expensive shops are in London so it wasn't really even great for that. Sorry to disappoint you Cherie but I would recommend going to either London or Florence instead. At least Florence had great affordable shoes and handbags! Milan's weren't affordable and quite ugly! Other than shopping, there isn't anything to do in Milan either so it's not even great for museums or galleries etc. I think that during the fashion shows would be the only time to visit but then it would be so crowded you wouldn't be able to move!