This past weekend we took a trip to Milan, and stayed at an Airbnb in Portofino. It was a great time! We flew to Milan on Friday morning and headed straight to Portofino. Our accommodations were right on the coast. It was a crazy experience because we had to walk up a steep mountain for 15 minutes in order to get to the Airbnb house. On our walk over we passed by the neighbor’s house which turned out to be the grandmother’s house of the couple that lived in our Airbnb house! We were greeted at the top of the mountain by the young Italian couple who lived in the house. They helped us into our rooms that we were to stay in for the night. The house had 8 bedrooms overall, and we occupied two of them between four people. There was a big balcony overlooking the mountains, beach on both sides, and a patio in the front that overlooked the same view.
In the afternoon, we went swimming at the nearby beach. At night, we were blessed with the opportunity have an authentic Italian home cooked meal by our hosts! They cooked a big meal that consisted of bread, potato salad, pesto pasta with string beans, and a fried eggplant. It was absolutely fantastic! We had our dinner on the outdoor patio that overlooked the coast.
The next morning we went to the town of Portofino which was really cool. It is said that a lot of famous fashion designers lived in Portofino like Gucci and Tory Burch. The views in Portofino are beautiful; I wouldn’t blame them for living there!
After Portofino, we went to Milan for the remainder of Saturday. It was an interesting experience as it was not what I expected at all. The amount of upscale restaurants, banking firms, and classy stores clashed with the somewhat run-down streets. It almost felt like Manhattan in my opinion. We opted to have a long sit-down meal, which was a great choice since the food there was definitely worth the extra time. We took a taxi ride to the center of the city to look at some of the sights but realized that we didn’t have much time left and had to pick up our luggage at the airport since we left it there.
We chose not to spend money on a hotel since our trip was already so expensive. Instead we decided to spend the night at the airport since our flight was going to be at 6AM. Without even knowing it, this was probably one of the best choices of the trip. At 1AM my friend and I were hanging out passing the time when we heard an uproar of shouts and excitement. When we turned out to see what was going on, we were absolutely shocked to see Andrea Pirlo, a legendary retired futbol player, who played for Inter Milan and Juventus, walking through one of the gates. We took this opportunity to obviously take a selfie with the man. Definitely one for the books.
Milan was extremely fun! However this week is my last week of my internship, which is very upsetting. Between traveling on the weekends, I’ve gotten incredibly close with my coworkers and boss, more so than I would have thought. I am starting to realize that I will miss them very much. We all planned to get drinks and hang out as my send-off. Hopefully I’ll have more to report on this in my next post.
Wesley Shi
More fromÂ
Discover Destinations
 category
