Last Thursday we had a busy but lovely day in Milan to attend the grand opening of the H&M’s Italian flagship store in the Duomo area, which meant we have waited a good hour standing in the cold and watching a big red countdown screen. Luckily the weather was pretty nice, but even though the sun was up in the blue sky, it was such a cold, chilly, freezing day and fortunately they planned to warm us up with freshly made coffee and croissants and muffins – which made the waiting quite enjoyable, let me tell you this. The store is beautiful and ginormous and stocks a few items I’ve never seen elsewhere and there was no doubt we were going to take advantage of our well-deserved first 300 customers’ 25% off voucher – especially since the day after was Christmas Jumper Day -, however I was a bit disappointed because I read somewhere they might was going to open the first Italian H&M Home store as well, but we’ll need to keep buying our homeware from the website as they don’t seem to want to bring H&M Home here anytime soon (sadly!).

Milan is feeling pretty festive with its Christmas markets, big Christmas tree, fairy lights and festive decorations all around. We took advantage of the trip to do some Christmas shopping as well as to go and admire the Ladurée festive environment (and they are definitely doing Christmas right!) and windows (I love the new pineapple packagings) and obviously to treat myself to some macarons – as always I came home with a very brown-looking macarons box as I just have a thing for coffee, chocolate and vanilla that stops me from deciding of trying some new flavours everytime I buy macarons, however I think I might’ve become a fan of the Rose Petal one!

I was so glad I decided to wear jeans, two pair of woollen socks, my warmest wool-blend coat and my new pompom beanie, as I don’t think I would had ever been able to browse through all the Christmas markets without freezing that day. I’ve been very faithful to this winter uniform these past weeks that I thought it deserves a mention; I know it’s quite boring, but I bet most of the girls out there would rather wear boring instead of freezing in the winter cold just to wear cute dresses (or maybe not?), plus I love boring, boring is surely my thing!

I’M WEARING ::
JEANS – TOPSHOP ; BLUE SHIRT – H&M ; SWEATER – H&M (SIMILAR) ;
SOCKS – OLD (SIMILAR) ;  DESERT BOOTS – OLD (SIMILAR) ; COAT – H&M ;
HAT – H&M ; SCARF – OLD (SIMILAR) ; SATCHEL – ASOS (SIMILAR)

SHOP THE POST

You all might already be familiar with my day trips around, especially to Milan which have happily become more frequent recently – being that wandering around a big city for a day means you totally have to carry a few essentials in your bag (you know, just in case…), I decided to invest in a new satchel bag recently that would fit everything quite nicely and yet would be comfortable and not too bulky to carry around. I opted for this beautiful ASOS Tan Satchel which is slightly bigger than my usual satchels which resulted to help fitting more things in it, and yet it’s quite discrete, neutral and slim. You might have seen me wearing it here, however this lovely satchel quickly became my go-to bag for any occasions.

So here I have a list of essentials I’ve found I need on a basic day trip in a big city other than the obvious like a wallet, your phone and your trusted sunglasses…

A packable shopper bag :: you might think you don’t need it, but when you’ll have a foldable shopper bag in your handbag you’ll notice all the difference; whether you’re going for a shopping trip or you find out you need to carry a few more things than planned, you’ll have a backup bag that will fit it all!

Hand sanitizer ::  or hand wipes especially if you’re such an hygiene freak like I am; I feel so lost when I forget it at home especially when you have to deal with the underground!

A face spray :: like the Avene Thermal Spring Water Spray is such a staple of mine in summertime to refresh my face (and body) and my makeup, but it’s pretty handy in every season really, you just never know… A travel size fits in every bag and it will prove to be pretty useful!

Camera + Lens :: I don’t know about you, but I love to take pictures, maybe because everything I do can be a good font of inspiration for future blog posts, but I actually also like to have all my memories captured in pictures. I like to bring only one lens to avoid bringing some extra weight, so I pick the one I want to carry right before going out according to my needs that day.

A book ::  or better an eReader, which is a lot more compact and that will keep you entertained on the longer underground or train trips.

A lint roller :: never wore a fluffy sweater with black jeans and found out your legs look a fluffy mess? No? Well, lucky you. Since when I discovered the existence of the Travel Size Lint Rollers my life has changed as well as my black jeans which don’t look fluffy and hairy anymore!

A water bottle :: because it’s important to stay hydrated during the day, and believe it or not I found a travel size of this too.

You should not forget an umbrella, because you can’t ever know if it’s going to rain, as well as a lip balm, a backup lipstick (for retouching your lips after lunch and dinner – and the mid-afternoon slice of cake, of course!), a few hair elastics (life saviors when it’s hot or windy out there) and of course a few backup memory cards for your camera, just in case you get to snap more than planned.

WHAT’S IN MY BAG:
WALLET – TOPSHOP ;  POCKET SHOPPER – HARRODS ; FACE SPRAY – AVENE ; PHONE CASE ;
UMBRELLA – IKEA ; KINDLE ; LIP BALM – SWEET CECILY’S* ; HEADPHONES WINDER ;
LINT ROLLER – FOREVER 21 ; LIPSTICK – URBAN DECAY.

Now, I’m no expert of Milan by any means and I don’t even visit it as often as I would like to, however one of my goals for the next months is to visit it more frequently and discover new pretty places. You know I love to share, so I decided to start a little blog series where I bring you along in Milan finding out new places where to eat delicious food. Hopefully this will help some of you that are visiting Milan for only a few days, to choose a few places where to go and eat something nice, or just for you to enjoy seeing Milan from a screen for the moment!

Let’s start with some classics…

California Bakery is a place you want to visit. It has such an interesting history behind it and when I entered the little café for the first time and started wandering around looking at their delicious desserts I couldn’t help but think about the founder’s travels in the USA that made it all happen. It has a few Pinterest worthy cafes located in different areas of Milan, and there’s something about the decor, the white rusty floorboards and the retro vintage-ish feeling that makes everything more magical. This is definitely the place where I would love to work at my laptop all day, peaceful but alive at the same time. Their cakes and desserts look amazing and me and my boyfriend have decided we need to try them all at some point, however their pic-nic, brunch, bagels & sandwiches options all sound pretty amazing too!

Our favourite? The Cream Cheese Kid’s Brownie, mmm!

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Whether you’ve been a tourist or you have lived in Milan for a while, you should have tasted a Luini‘s panzerotto at some point. However if you weren’t aware of the existence of this little spot of paradise, you won’t miss it out the next time! This is such a classic, if you’re in Milan you need to eat one of their panzerotti at least once, and I’m not even a fan of Luini’s prices however I can’t deny I still succumb to the temptation sometimes. Luini is an historical bakery right behind the Duomo that fries and sells the most delicious panzerotti in Milan. You’ll probably recognize it by the queue of people waiting for buying some at every hour of the day really, and even though their panzerotti wouldn’t make for a healthy mid-afternoon snack, I wouldn’t suggest to decide to visit it around dinner or lunch time (just trying to avoid you a good half an hour or more of waiting!).

Our favourites? The classic tomato and mozzarella panzerotto, and the ‘vegetarian’ with ricotta and spinach, yum!

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