Torino – Milano

Tuesday 23rd June 2026

All aboard the Italo Treno for the one hour high speed journey to Milano. We walked through the porticos from Piazza Castello along via Roma all the way to the Torino Centrale. It truly is a master stroke in town planning when one takes in the beautiful buildings on each side of via Roma and then the train station is another masterpiece that caps off the clever design.

 

 

 

 

 

Morning tea was served on the train at an astonishing speed.

 

We could have gone faster if these guys weren’t on board.

 

Milano is considerably larger than Torino and far more expensive. The underground Metro is an efficient people mover and it was a very simple exercise to transfer from the Central Rail Station to the M2 and arrive at our accommodation. Arriving at street level in the midday glare, we were hit with 36C, and a large street market that extended along the medium strip for two blocks before turning the corner for another two. The contrast to Torino was confronting, for all the world it felt like a middle-east fruit and vegetable bazaar with an overprint of Asian knock-off clothing. Not a Gucci bag in sight.

Our apartment is great, and the air-conditioning a great bonus. The elevator is weird and the lock on the apartment door has to crank clockwise four times to wind the steel reinforced pins into place. Personal security in Milano is front of mind all of the time. It has a very different feel to anywhere else that we have visited in Italy. Lots of eating places serve seafood (and only seafood) and are far more expensive by comparison to other places over the last month.  Despite Milano being land locked, fresh seafood is flown in daily from the Mediterranean. That is a hangover from the early 1800’s when extensive canals were used to move produce around and Milano took advantage of links to the coast through a complex network of rivers and canals.

Dinner was at a Bistrot, next to a student pub, across the road from a Gelato shop, next to a grocery store (that keeps Gillette razors behind the counter for security) and a handy tram line we plan to use tomorrow.