Meanwhile, over in Milan.

It was the Sunday evening of a springtime weekend elapsed in the beautiful north of Italy, yet one which was spent entirely within the sprawling concrete metropolis of Milan. A place where beauty is less apparent than the nearby hills of greens and blues that roll down from the snow-capped Alps to send all to states of utter tranquility. Yet it does exist here, we learnt, it remains safe of city-induced asphyxiation, you just have to find it.

Carlos and I had landed two days earlier and an hour late. Our delay prompting us to wait for Harry to land on his around-the-world flight from Manchester via Budapest (or somewhere else of random note) and take the opportunity for our first espresso in the arrival hall; what it is about Italy that is so conducive to a short black I'll never know (Ed – it’s when in Rome syndrome), there's something about ordering an espresso from Starbucks that doesn't quite work, saving even for the fact they only serve coffee flavoring, it just doesn’t feel right. In fact we would have had time to sip a grande chai frappucino, should it have existed and not ruled blasphemy of the highest order, as Harry had been legging it around the wrong terminal looking for us and would need another hour still to join us in T2. With our own delay rendered completely meaningless - he should have just met us in the city - it was near midnight when we eventually reached our final destination: hostel Zebra.

Hostel Zebra, rest assured, wasn’t the original plan. It was decided upon for its 24-hour bar facility while we were bored and restless in the check-in queue at Luton Airport. We had met a fellow weekend-tripper having had her shouting at us in stark Australian, as well as to someone who could apparently tolerate it through the cushion of a telephone, that Zebra was defo the best and where she was staying because, actually, like, her cousin could no longer let her stay at the apartment because she was still stuck in Thailand. Naturally, we discarded my earlier booking at the sweet Italian family albergo with nice coffee and breakfast and loving and trusting ‘no need to pay a deposit, just pay on arrival’ and ‘can I just confirm your booking for the third time, ah yes, good, we still have the rooms for you, we can’t wait to see you later today’ temperament, naturally.

It ticked over into Saturday morning by the time we had checked-in and were ready to get back out. On London time we knew we had, probably, about 59 minutes left to have fun before everyone’s told to go home. Armed with local advice we flew past the promising sight of the hostel bar and pool table, albeit in slightly damp surroundings, and hailed a taxi for Colonne di San Lorenzo.

We arrived beneath an old roman archway propped by antiquated columns that circled out around a darkly lit square in front of us.  In the centre of the square sat a faded cherubic fountain. To the right, the shadow of a cathedral that looked almost abandoned in the soft light lent an ominous air over the scene. It was wild. There were people everywhere. Scattered in clusters among the Roman ruins that littered the square and spilling out into the nearby bushes and streets and any of the heaving hole-in-the-wall bars and by-day restaurants in close proximity, they drank and smoked, they sat, stood, danced, clapped, sang. At first we thought it was a music festival but we soon noticed there wasn't any music playing- nothing. at. all... Just a typical Friday night for the Milanesi.

It was quintessential Italy, quintessential Europe. There they were out in their public spaces, drinking and laughing and socialising, no one was even drunk despite the cheap alcohol, yet everyone was more animated than an English pub in the throes of a 2pm happy hour. London time was gone. We had crossed the channel and reached the place where everything’s better; the weather, the drinks, the coffee, the food, I won’t go on for fear of being taken for a turncoat. We bought from one of the many hole-in-the-wall bars that spilled into the square and found some space on the piazza floor to kick-off.

The locals stunned, or rather, were stunning. Had any one of them returned with us across the channel they would have be praised and worshipped as the epitome of beauty upon arrival. Heralded as some rare commodity to remind us what ‘in full health’ actually looks like and that thick, dense bronzing agent does not in any way mirror the effect of that thing you see in pictures called the sun (note, I do not refer to the The Sun). Yet among their Italian peers, these flawless Dorian’s of Grey are adjudged simply as “cute”.

Next morning, late and in a slight daze, we rose to see the full European sun beating down upon the city. We walked aimlessly through the maze of wide and long streets leading to harsh fascist architectures on a grey scale not unlike a London sky. Milan comes under frequent criticism from the touring masses for its lack of beauty. Therein exists the great irony of being the fashion capital of Europe as tourists come to eye off the superficial splendor; they come and glance and leave with the city’s richest veins and most precious ores left untapped.

The grand architecture itself is something to behold. Monuments of exquisite vision such as Il Duomo, Centrale, Porta Sempione, Cimitero Monumentale, the list goes on. These are recognised landmarks in their own right and lend added grandeur to the city which one, especially being of Australian and palpably unhistorical origins, finds easily captivating. Lasting rewards for handling centuries of dispute resolution; of church and state, of left and right and of affording accommodation to the men who decided they wanted everything. Coming from an island on the other side of the world, where everything was sorted for us, like a Gloria Jeans (that's Australian for Starbucks) franchisee seeing the boardroom of the head office where things were once thrashed out, it is exhilarating in a glad-you-ironed-out-the-kinks-first kind of way.

Now, arriving at the great fortress, the coliseum of football that is the San Siro, and fascist icon if ever there was one, we remembered that we were actually here with an objective. It was Derby day. The grounds around us teemed with blue and red enlivening the city’s palette. A thunderous crack of a firework echoed around the inside of the stadium. Followed by a roar which felt even louder. The ultras were calling. We raced to get inside. A year on, I'd returned.