A factor often connected with satisfaction levels is picking up/dropping off rental cars. The experience, good or bad, doesn’t impact overall on how we view a destination, but it can leave a lasting impression.

Good advice in Milan
The staff at Avis strongly advised, in a friendly ‘this is really for your own good’ way that we take full insurance. When we initially waved the advice away, saying we were used to driving in countless countries they responded with a “this is Italy people drive really badly here, you’ll need it. Trust us.” So we did. Within two days there was a dent in the side of the car, damaged whilst it was minding its own business in a car park beside Lake Garda. Incidentally, the entrance to rental car drop off at Milan is confusing as hell. We managed to find it, just. But over a couple of visits we’ve seen plenty of cars reversing along a busy approach road after they’d overshot the entrance. I hope they’d taken the full insurance option.

Most practical, Munich
Locating a proper supermarket right beside the exit and car rental hall in Munich Airport is inspired planning. You’ve got to love the Germans for this sort of forward thinking. Being able to stock up on wine, water, and snacks at non-airport prices before we set off on a long road journey gets things off to a happy start, especially if arriving quite late… or even early evening. Arriving at 19.00, a drive from the airport to our hotel took a couple of hours, making us too late for the ridiculously early German dinner times, but the snacks we’d picked up at the airport meant there was no hungry gashing of teeth as a result.

No manual drives in Glasgow
Despite having booked a car with a gear stick, Sixt at Glasgow Airport not only informed us they didn’t have the model we’d booked but that nobody drove manual cars there any more. Nobody drives manual in Scotland? Utter bollocks. To be fair, they did offer us an upgrade to a snazzy BMW or a limousine-like pimp car (their words)… both automatic. As neither of us have driven automatics, we didn’t fancy attempting it for the first time in an oversized monster on narrow, winding Highland roads. The only other option was a downgrade (no refund for their error) which we took.

It’s Zadar, but where are we going?
Stepping from the plane to being handed the keys to our hire car at Zadar Airport happened so slickly quickly that we were actually cruising the streets of the Croatian city before we knew where we were heading for. Partially my fault. A distracting party weekend in Hay on Wye immediately before travel combined with a shocker of a night in an airport hotel at Liverpool had meant I hadn’t gotten around to printing off details of our accommodation and couldn’t access the info from my phone. The solution was a prompt introduction to Croatian cafe culture with a quick pause at a cafe with wifi and strong, cerebral cobweb-clearing coffee.

A tale of two airports, Tenerife
Tenerife’s two airports are geographically quite close, but in other ways worlds apart. Tenerife North Airport made Airhop’s top ten best airports list. We wouldn’t argue with that. It’s one of the most relaxing airports we’ve travelled through, and picking up the hire car from CICAR mirrors the general laid back attitude. Newbie arrivals might get a shock encountering a four lane motorway immediately after arrival, but once free of La Laguna’s busy autopista, the drive along the north coast, with Mount Teide providing a stunner of a backdrop, gets the juices of anticipation flowing. Tenerife South is a decent airport, but exudes that homogeneous holiday resort airport vibe. My beef with it is that after a teasing arrival – Montaña Roja looking splendid on the coast – the drive south is through an unattractive landscape which has similarities to builder’s rubble; a poor first impression which isn’t helped by an overdose of naff billboards.

Worst car hire, Fuerteventura
Sticking with the Canary Islands, the most unpleasant car hire experience we’ve had anywhere was on Fuerteventura with Goldcar. It was our first visit to the island and it got off to such a bad start we were predisposed not to like the island after it. It was so bad Andy was moved to write a rant about the experience (I’m usually the ranter). Thankfully our experiences thereafter diluted the bad taste the Goldcar experience had left.

Longest wait, Marseille
Two things stick in my mind about arriving at Marseille Airport. It seemed to take an eternity before we were handed the car keys, the process seemed to take oh-so-much longer than anywhere else. Waiting in a greenhouse of a car rental office when it was 30C plus didn’t help. The other is the runway jutting out into the Etang de Berre lagoon – WOW. For all the fussiness, I like Marseille Airport.

You can’t be serious, Coyhaique
Chile’s Coyhaique Airport is a sweet and friendly big shed of an airport, and one I shall always have very fond memories of thanks to the kindness of the staff there. However, I did exclaim “you can’t be serious?” at one point when returning our Mitsubishi pick-up truck. Over nearly three weeks we’d driven hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres on the (in)famous Carretera Austral without any mishap other than the car wearing a dusty overcoat. The girl responsible for checking the car was returned in a decent state had commented “it’s so dirty I can’t tell if there’s any damage.” To be fair, after my McEnroe outburst the girl laughed and ticked the ‘all okay’ box on her docs.

A stunner of a way to arrive, Lisbon
It can take a long time to get out of Lisbon Airport. But once free of its clutches, if heading south across the Tagus, the experience is unique. After a few minutes you escape the city to cross the Tagus on the Vasco da Gama Bridge, until recently the longest bridge in Europe at just over 17km in length (12km being over water). It is an architectural marvel. Our first experience crossing it included a dreamy sunset of endless pastel bands drifting across the sky, an army of fisherman wading in the mudflats on each side of the bridge, and a flamboyance of flamingos in the wetlands at its southern end.

Bizarre Basel
Although only 3.5km from the Swiss city it’s named after, Basel Airport is in France so is jointly operated by France and Switzerland. The same car hire companies have different branches located in separate areas. Which you use depends on whether you pick up your hire car in France or Switzerland. It isn’t an issue collecting the car, but returning it is a minefield. You can’t leave a French hire car at a Swiss drop off point. If you try, you’ll be directed to the ‘correct’ country even though it’s the same company. Although they share the one building (only a couple of hundred metres separates them as the crow flies), you can’t just drive across the airport from one to the other. Nope, you have to leave the airport, join the motorway and seek out the correct entrance to the other country’s part of the airport. I know this because we got it wrong on a Monday morning when the motorway was gridlocked and the time left for being able to check in was running out. We only managed to catch our flight because a member of Avis’s French staff took pity on us and allowed us to leave our Swiss hire car in a French parking bay.

The joy of travel.

I thought it would be nice to bring a good bottle of olive oil home from my Milan trip, a tasty reminder of some of the fine Lombardy cuisine I’m enjoying. But I only have a few minutes in which to choose one and I’m faced with seemingly infinite shelves stacked with bottles whose labels are so visually appealing I’m tempted to start collecting them.

Every variety on display has an information ticket telling me where it comes from, how it tastes and what foods to pair it with. I could just as easily be in the wine section. I’ve read three tickets before I realise this is a Herculean task that requires at least half an hour of research. And that’s just one bottle of olive oil. Imagine if I was doing my weekly food shop as some customers in here appear to be doing. I’d have to give an entire day over to the operation. I know Eataly are exponents of the Slow Food movement but this is ridiculous.

Ironically, there’s nothing slow about the time frame of the burgeoning Eataly empire. Opening his first store in Turin in 2007, Oscar Farinetti now has 27 outlets worldwide including Japan and the United States. His New York outlet which opened in 2010 receives between eight and thirteen thousand visitors every day and 25,000 diners a week and its only critics complain that it’s just too busy for native New Yorkers to patronise any more. With a second store set to open on the site of the World Trade Centre in autumn 2015, that issue may be resolved. On the other hand, Eataly may just double its out of town visitors instead.

Stepping into the flagship Milan branch of Eataly, it’s immediately apparent what makes it such a popular venue. Visually it’s stunning. In the cavernous interior of the former Smeraldo Theatre, three open concept floors framed by sleek, glass fittings surround a central space rising from floor to ceiling. It’s like looking simultaneously at a cross section of three high end stores and eateries. On the middle level, a semi circular platform juts out over the open space, its floor set with a piano and amplifiers. In deference to the building’s theatrical heritage, local musicians perform here in the evenings, providing entertainment for shoppers and diners and a potential launch pad for young unknowns.

In bringing Italian gastronomy to the masses, the Eataly empire has three principle objectives for those who visit its emporiums – eat, buy, learn. Endorsed by the Slow Food Movement, Oscar Farinetti founded his stores on Slow Food principles using produce sourced from sustainable, small, local producers, cutting out the distributor middle man in order to keep prices low. Stacking his shelves and counters with the best produce available in the locality, Farinetti then set about educating shoppers about the products, their quality, taste and how to use them.

Interspersed with the merchandising are a series of eateries so you can taste the produce before you buy it. Alongside the formidable selection of pastas that occupy entire aisles, pasta dominates the menu; seafood specialities sit beside the fish stall; you can dine on the famous Piedmont fassone beef before buying it from the pristine displays of prime cuts across the aisle.

Although every product has its own label of information, and the staff at each section are highly trained and knowledgeable about their products, Farinetti wanted to go further. He wanted people to be able to learn how to prepare dishes the traditional way and to learn how simply good Italian food can be cooked. So every store offers cooking classes run by local chefs. Eat, buy, learn.

Wandering the displays, the aromas of freshly cooked Italian cuisine assail the nostrils at every turn. Beyond the racks of dried pasta, the smell of chocolate fills the air from a wall-mounted cascade behind the chocolate counter. As I stand in awe, my face must have betrayed my longing because the nice man behind the counter passed me a tiny cup of chocolate from the perpetual fountain. Continuing past the gelato café and the cakes, as the creamy chocolate cooled and began to thicken, I ate it from a spoon.

I wanted to buy everything. I wanted to try everything. I wanted to learn how to cook everything. I wanted to move to Milan and spend a day a week perusing the shelves and stocking up on fresh produce to take home and prepare fabulous Italian meals served with local wines. Instead, all I had time to do was look for a bottle of olive oil and I hadn’t even managed to do that successfully.

I left Eataly empty handed and heavy hearted, vowing to make time for Slow shopping in future. I wonder if Farinetti has plans to open a store in the Canary Islands…

I visited Eataly with the British Guild of Travel Writers as a guest of WonderfulExpo, the official tourist website of Milan and Lombardy.

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+

We’re standing beneath the glass and iron domed roof of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele which joins the famous Piazza Del Duomo to the equally famous Piazza Della Scala in the heart of Milan’s fashion district. Beneath the vast glass dome, ornate frescoes and intricate carvings decorate the golden, Neo-classical faces of the towering, galleried shops whose uniform gold lettering on black background says Versace, Prada and Louis Vuitton.

Milan is synonymous with fashion.  Everywhere we look there are names straight from the pages of Vogue; Gucci, Armani, Versace, Cartier. Behind their elegant doors, shop assistants stand ready to assist those who have the spending power to browse their collections without breaking out in a cold sweat at price labels that run to three numbers.

We wander on, leaving a small circle of tourists still waiting to twirl on the bull’s balls, and head towards the Duomo, stopping briefly outside Camparino’s glass frontage.
You’re not a real Milanese if you don’t take campari here in the Galeria,” says Laura, moving on before I’ve had a chance to suggest, “When in Milan…”.

Emerging into Piazza Duomo in the golden sun of a cold winter afternoon, the spires and domes of the cathedral shine like a beacon for the hundreds of visitors milling around the piazza, cameras trained on its magnificent façade. We stroll along Corso Vittorio Emanuele, stopping to window shop at Rinoscente’s eight floors of shopping pleasure dome topped with a trendy café where you can sip hot chocolate overlooking the spires of the Duomo. A temple to consumerism alongside a Christian icon, the yin and yang of the Milanese.

Alexander McQueen, Miu Miu, Bulgari, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith – they’re all here, their styles as eclectic as their names. But they all have two things in common; there are few visible price tags on display, and there are even fewer customers inside their oh-so-cool shops. Armies of smartly dressed shop assistants stare out at the street, oblivious to the tourists, their eyes trained to spot the affluent shopper at a hundred paces. I begin to wonder if anyone can actually afford to shop in Milan or if these outlets are just showcases for collections, static runways for designers who can’t afford not to be seen in one of the world’s  fashion capitals.
But as we move further down Corso Vittorio Emanuele we begin to pass high street names that are far more familiar to my credit card; H&M, Zara, Pull & Bear, their windows emblazoned with the sales reductions and their interiors teeming with shoppers.

Wandering the streets of the city, it’s obvious that there is plenty of money around. You have only to glance at the sharp suited businessmen with their TAGHeuer watches, and the Jimmy Choo-clad feet and Isabel Marant draped bodies of statuesque young women, striding across the piazza with an Armani or a Prada carrier bag in tow. And I guess if your stock runs to thousands of Euros for a dress or a suit, you don’t have to sell many to make a profit.  Oops, was that the closed Ferrari store we just passed? Time for a campari.

Where to shop for fashion in Milan.
Designer devotees:
The so-called Quadrilatero d’Oro (golden quadrangle) of Milan’s designer shops is centred around Via Montenapoleone, considered one of the 15 most expensive streets in the world, and continues along Via Manzoni, corso Venezia and Via della Spiga. The labels and exorbitant price tags continue into Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.

Designer outlets:
If you like the styles but can’t hack the price tags, head to one of the city’s many designer outlets where this year’s runway designs arrive quicker than they do into UK suburbia, at a fraction of the original price. Il Salvagente in Via Fratelli Bronzetti has been around since 1978 and is popular with visitors, as is Dmagazine which has three outlets in the city, two centrally located in via Bigli and via Manzone.

Alternative, vintage and ethnic clothing:
Try Corso di Porta Ticinese where you’ll find Levi’s Vintage, more denim than you can shake a Status Quo album cover at and a Gas outlet amongst the plethora of small vintage shops and boutiques. Vinyl lovers should head to Serendeepity for used classics and dance music amidst the vintage clothing racks.

Concept stores:
Milan’s newest shopping trend which is pulling the crowds in is the concept store, vast, style warehouses incorporating fashion, technology, beauty and food, all top labels and all under one roof. Try the stylish seven floors of Excelsior on Galleria del Corso and the city’s original 10 Corso Como which opened in 1991 in a converted garage.

BuzzTrips enjoyed a Shopping, Food and Culture Tour of Milan with Wonderful Expo 2015 the lovely people who will take care of all your needs when visiting Expo in Milan this summer. Grazie mille, Laura

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+

This year, Milan is hoping to move the planet forward in a less tangible, but more global and sustainable way, by contributing to the UN’s Millennium Goal of eliminating the conditions of poverty and extreme hunger.

While there are still 870 million people worldwide who are undernourished, the rate of deaths from diseases related to overeating and obesity is rising, with a World Health Organisation estimate of 2.8 million deaths annually. Earth is still a very long way from utilising its resources effectively and equitably.

Expo Milano 15 will bring together nations, organizations and businesses under the theme of Feeding The Planet, Energy For Life to share innovations and technologies that will work towards developing strategies for a sustainable future for the world’s nutritional needs.

It’s difficult to imagine a more important theme.

But Expo Milan 15 isn’t just about think-tanks and workshops. From 1st May to 31st October 2015 an estimated 20 million visitors will descend on Milan and its satellite host sites expecting to be entertained, informed and amazed. And Milan is gearing up to deliver on all three fronts.

What is Expo Milano 2015?
The Milan Universal Exposition will be staged over an area north west of the city of Milan with 53 pavilions, each owned by a different nation, staging exhibitions, events and workshops relating to the theme of Feeding The Planet, Energy For Life.

The UK Pavilion was a winning design submitted by the Nottingham artist Wolfgang Buttress and will involve walking through a fruit orchard and a natural wild flower meadow to arrive at a golden orb in the shape of a honeycomb – The Hive. Showcasing the best of British food, music and fashion, The Hive represents the unique role that hives play in our ecosystem and it will pulsate and buzz with the noise of a real bee colony.

Along with the pavilions will be 12 ‘clusters’ which will be akin to mini villages where those nations who don’t have a pavilion will share exhibition space. A new concept designed for Expo Milano 15 by students from Italy and across the world, the clusters will have six food themes and three thematic ones which will group nations together according to the food chain. For example, the coffee cluster will include Kenya, Costa Rica and Guatemala; the spices cluster will include Tanzania, Brunei and Afghanistan and so on. Thematic clusters will feature countries linked by geography into Bio-Mediterraneum, Arid Zones and Islands. Each cluster will offer a sensory experience for visitors enabling them to see, smell and taste the produce as well as learning about the history and future of that particular food chain.

Why Go?
During its six months of existence, Expo Milano 15 will feature 1170 events to be held all over the city and in different parts of Lombardy. These are just some of the enticing events which you can enjoy over the summer of Expo:

Piano City Milano 2015, 22-24 May. Over 300 free piano performances across the city in venues ranging from concert halls to piazzas, river boats and trams.

Cirque Du Soleil will perform a unique show at the exhibition site daily. Devised specially for Expo Milano 15 and not being staged anywhere else.
David Bailey Exhibition, PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contempotanea, March – June. A landmark exhibition of the photographer’s work spanning five decades.
La Scala. For the first time in its history, La Scala will open every day from May 1st to October 31st in support of Expo Milano 15 giving thousands of people from across the globe a once in a lifetime opportunity to enjoy a performance at this, one of the world’s most famous theatres.
Leonardo Da Vinci Exhibition, Palazzo Reale, April 15 – July 19. The largest exhibition dedicated to Leonardo Da Vinci ever staged.
Milan Symphony Orchestra. 88 concerts are scheduled to take place during Expo. 58 will be the Symphony Orchestra season; 14 will be part of a new series entitled ‘Around the World’ and dedicated to the countries taking part in Expo and 16 will be special events including a closing concert.

By visiting the site itself you will learn about food technologies for the future; enjoy the futuristic designs, the children’s park and the green landscaping; see exhibitions and join in workshops, and not least, sample dishes spanning the globe at what will be the largest restaurant in the world including 32 street food stalls and seven gourmet restaurants.

When is it?
May 1st to October 31st 2015. Open daily 10am -11pm

Where is it?
The main Expo site is located 25 minutes from the centre of Milan and events are being staged in 506 locations across the city and the surrounding Lombardy area.

How do I get there?
By Metro from the Duomo in 25 minutes and by train from Central Station in 35 minutes.

What will it cost?
There are 35 categories of tickets available including adults, children, disabled and family tickets and depending on whether you want an open day ticket or a fixed date one. The maximum price for a ticket will €32 (£24/$36). A discount of 18%-20% applies on tickets bought before the May 1st opening.

Tickets:
www.expo2015.org

More Information:
WonderfulExpo 2015. The official tourist website of Milan and Lombardy, (available both in B2B and B2C) containing information, updates, descriptions, images and videos about the beauties of the area, as well as a range of proposals of travel, accommodation and services offered by Lombardy to its visitors.

All images, except the top one, courtesy of WonderfulExpo 2015

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+