A sodden, stubborn, strand of hair had decided to firmly stick itself to my cheek, clearly in blatant disregard of my intended – and, needless to say carefully coiffured – hairdo. Vain? Very. Looking from the outside in, it’s odd, isn’t it, the investment which we place upon our holiday “look”? All of the shops trawled for comfortable-but-cool travel gear, the hours spent searching for stylish-and-still-wearable shoes, the practice of low-maintenance, no-tool hairstyles…it had all culminated in my perfect resemblance to a cat caught in a rainstorm. Some selfie material. In hindsight, I’m rather ashamed to admit how much of my investment in the trip had been purely aesthetic (although, I dare say, if we were to be truly honest with ourselves, a startling amount of the things we do are!). But, on paper, this holiday was perfect, if stereotypical, Instagram fodder: a week in Milan with my super-stylish auntie, an itinerary jam-packed full with the must-see sights, and, naturally, an AirBnB perfectly primed for photographs (complete with fairy lights and a flamingo mural). And yet I’d found myself here: shivering on a sidewalk, rather than sauntering about with gelato (and camera) in hand. That perfectly-planned itinerary had flown out of the window, and a storm had flown in instead. I was officially Not Happy. However, this trip had been my entire machination. It was I alone who’d found the discounted flights, spotted the startlingly cheap apartment, and coerced my auntie into coming along. Being the stubborn sort, come hell or heavy rain forecasts, I was not going to show my disappointment. We were going to Have Fun, regardless of the restrictions imposed by both budget and weather. The former meant shopping was out; the latter had halted the plans to potter around public gardens. Cue a quick march into a coffee shop, followed by my rapid, espresso-fuelled googling of “cheap indoor things to do in Milan”. Admittedly, my Italian was (and remains) somewhere between shoddy and non-existent, and I’d not managed to make my slightly decrepit iPhone 4 translate the webpage. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from Castello Sforzesco – but, judging from the logo at least, it looked like it had a roof. It was a promising start. And so I coaxed my auntie from her second cup of tea (allowing her, of course, a second cannoli). As a gust of wind slammed the door shut behind us, we did begin to query our decision. Three hours, and a sodden subway journey, later, I’d be in a position to stifle those doubts. To get away from the norm – whether that means travelling 5,000 miles abroad, or 5,000 steps down the road – is to have the opportunity to make a conscious decision to appreciate, even to foreground, the things you’d never normally notice. I’d spent the summer playing flute in a castle, so my instinct upon reaching the Strumenti Musicali museum was to recoil. Even the keenest culture vulture finds it hard to get enthusiastic about their workplace every single day. More instruments, more historical settings…was this any different from being at home? Well, yes and no. To see something that is almost the same as what you know so well is so disjointing, so defamiliarizing – like losing your way in your own village, or seeing an old photograph through tinted sunglasses. Pressing each cool, ivory piano key, I found myself more than surprised at its dulcet tones. I was closer to entranced. Yes, I did this every day; yes, this was my job: but yet, this was different. It might not be a “new” experience, but it made me experience anew. When you travel, the expectation may well be that you seek the novel, the radically different – ideally, for our image-hungry Insta feeds, the unseen. To do this, naturally, your days must be thoroughly and utterly planned. Although your photos must look spontaneous, there is no time to go off script, off schedule, or into the ‘unspectacular’. How very, utterly misguided these aims are. Travelling is not about spot-the-difference: we will learn, and enjoy, far more if we try to spot-the-similarity. To do exactly what I did every work day, but find it refreshed? I wasn’t expecting that.