I've had some great success with Airbnb for apartment rentals. This year it was renting an apartment in Milan for six of us to spend Easter weekend, and what a great apartment and a great way to visit a city with friends!
After we had settled into out apartment we went out for dinner in the neighbourhood, not quite in the centre of town but still a busy neighbourhood with a lot better food choices than downtown.
The next day we all headed out via the subway system to the Duomo (at this point my third time although most people in our group had never been), after a long line we made it to the roof.
Then we had a long and rather inefficient lunch right around the Duomo, bustling with tourists but the staff was super busy. The people in our party who ordered calzones and pizza got a different amount, but I ordered ravioli and got precisely four. That does not a lunch make! We made up for it though with Gelato. It was warm in Milan, warmer than Klosters anyway, but still not very hot and we usually went out with a light coat.
In the evening everyone else went to see the ballet Giselle at La Scala (the Opera house in Milan). Mic and I didn't go because in my rush to buy tickets I bought two tickets for the wrong weekend.... The apartment had two bedrooms and Mic and I were deep asleep when the others came in, I slept through it all but apparently they cooked a nice pasta dinner since they hadn't eaten before the show, another wonderful advantage of staying in an apartment!
On Sunday Jeanette, Mic and I headed out to Venice, my third time to visit. It was quite chilly actually with lots of wind but the city was still amazing (and still totally packed with tourists).
I liked this door which they managed to straighten in an interesting way...
We wandered around the neighbourhoods and made out way to San Marco square and had another visit in Saint Mark's Basilica. It was as golden as I remembered it.
We wandered around some more in the town and made it in a tiny alley to see the snail staircase which I'd never seen before.
After that we headed back to the train station to catch our ride back to Milan and met up with everyone else for a sushi dinner.
It has been a very long time since I'd had a sushi dinner like how I remembered in Vancouver. There must be an international sushi supply shop that provides the wooden boats where they serve larger portions of sushi because I'd seen those exact same boats in Vancouver restaurants!
On Monday morning we had a relaxing morning in the apartment and a leisurely breakfast before going out separate ways home. For Mic and I it was back into the snow (rapidly disappearing but we know it will be back soon enough!).
