Historical center
Like a snail's shell, Milan grows in circles around a central core. When you take a map of Milan, your gaze is inevitably drawn to its geographical and historical center. This is the pulsating heart of the city: the symbolic one with the Cathedral (the "Duomo" for the Milanese there is only one and it's theirs!) and the Scala Theatre, the financial one with Piazza Affari, seat of the Stock Exchange, the cultural one with the Pinacoteca di Brera and some of the main museums, and finally the commercial one embodied by the Fashion Quadrilateral.
Behind the gates of the mansions are splendid gardens, Renaissance courtyards, small cloisters, ancient wells, medieval remains and other secret corners that can be seen or at least suspected with a little flair. The Brera district is one of the best preserved and most romantic corners of old Milan. Its poetry and its bourgeois-bohemian charm have nothing to envy to some districts of Paris. What was once Milan's Saint-Germain is now home to antique stores, small restaurants, vintage stores and tarot card readers.
Finally, the Indro Montanelli Public Gardens and the Villa Reale Park are not only the green lung of Milan, but also a haven of peace where all Milanese played as children. A great playground to recharge the body and mind, because in addition to the greenery, here you will find the Pac (Pavilion of Contemporary Art), the Gallery of Modern Art, the Museum of Natural History and the Planetario, an urban window open to the immensity of the universe.
From the Duomo to Castello Sforzesco, passing through Brera and Piazza San Babila, traffic is almost entirely forbidden to cars, making the center of Milan one of the most extensive pedestrian areas in Europe. A "quick tour" of this area requires at least a full day. It will allow you to appreciate Milan as one of the richest and most extraordinary cities in the world.Sant'Ambrogio Castello and Corso Sempione
Here we are in the oldest and most refined district of Milan. Rich in extraordinary historical testimonies, it has always been the preferred area of the city's oldest families, who have made it their home since antiquity and the Middle Ages. Here you will come across the only surviving Roman remains in Milan, those of a circus for shows and horse races (via Circo), while a walk between via Lanzone, via Cappuccio and piazza San Sepolcro, will allow you to admire the sober and elegant architecture of the aristocratic palaces from the communal period to the 18th century.
In particular, take the time to walk through Via Cappuccio where there is no shortage of discoveries to make. Here time seems to have passed more slowly: the walls, the portals, the gates, the very line of the street, evoke the past and a lifestyle of the Milanese aristocracy. Entering the interior of the mansions (for example, no. 13, Casa Radice Fossati and no. 18, Palazzo Lurani Cernuschi), you will discover hanging gardens, walls decorated with frescoes in pale but equally expressive colors and underground cellars with centuries-old vaults. In this street, the most exclusive details are found in the inner courtyards and cloisters that seem to have absorbed the reddish softness of the bricks of the nearby basilica of Sant'Ambrogio. An atmosphere that continues in the adjacent streets of via Lanzone, via Santa Valeria and via Santa Marta. Piazza Borromeo completes this sophisticated architectural setting. Here stands the imposing Palazzo Borromeo, a beautiful example of a medieval noble building (13th century) easily recognizable by its red brick façade. The wonder comes once you enter the courtyard; through the windows you can see a fresco depicting scenes of entertainment made according to the iconography of courtly love.
In this maze of quiet streets with pebble and porphyry pavement are some of the most beautiful stores in the city, from antique dealers to jewelers and cloth merchants. Several historic breweries, such as the Trattoria Milanese, the Brisa and the Marchesi pastry shop, have been welcoming loyal customers for generations.
The main parish of the district and the basilica dedicated to the patron saint of the city, the powerful lines of the basilica of Sant'Ambrogio rise majestically. The poet Francesco Petrarca lived for a long time in the house facing the basilica. A commemorative stele recalls his presence. Dominated by two bell towers, that of the Monks and that of the Canons, the Basilica was home, around the year 1000, to Cistercian monks and canons who exercised the same authority over the parish; some said mass on the right side, others on the left side of the central nave. In the same church, one winter evening in 1485, a group of conspirators were waiting for the Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza, known as "the More", to stab him. The Duke had the presence of mind to use a side door, thus saving the fate of the duchy.
This small world revolves around the Castello Sforzesco, symbol of the military and political power of the Duchy of Milan through the centuries. From the top of its ramparts, the castle dominates a cluster of exceptional museums with marvelous collections, the highlight of which is Michelangelo's Pietà Rondanini, the artist's most famous unfinished sculpture. It was here that Leonardo da Vinci left his mark during his stay in Milan, first in the Sala delle Asse in the castle itself, then in the refectory of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where he painted The Last Supper, probably the most famous fresco in the world, and then in La Vigna di Leonardo, where the vineyard given to him by Ludovico il Moro has been revived. At the Museum of Science and Technology, you can also admire the phantasmagorical plans of his creations.
Finally, such a bourgeois neighborhood could not fail to have a green space: the Parco Sempione, laid out in the 19th century on what was the Sforza's hunting grounds, is a true oasis of greenery adored by the Milanese. Corso Sempione and its neighboring streets, which are the exception in this area, because they were once off the beaten track and more popular, are now full of bars and glamorous cafes, the favorite hubs of Milanese nightlife in all seasons.
Garibaldi, Porta Nuova and Isola
This district is the one of the two main train stations of the city, Centrale and Garibaldi. For the past ten years it has been the architectural laboratory of the Lombard capital. Highly urbanized, it nevertheless has intriguing corners such as the piazza Gae Aulenti or the Isola district. This is where the city's new skyline is being built, higher and higher every day, with skyscrapers that are as avant-garde as they are daring.
Leaving behind the Fashion Quadrilateral and the Indro Montanelli gardens, wide, straight arteries laid out according to the most rigid fascist urbanism lead to the Stazione Centrale, Milan's main train station. Wanted by Mussolini, this station, with its gigantism, its neoclassical inscriptions and its mosaics of Art Deco inspiration, is a good example of rationalist architecture. Just in front of the station stands the Pirelli skyscraper, known as Pirellone (the great Pirelli), considered along with the Duomo as one of the symbols of Milan and one of the most elegant skyscrapers in existence, due to its slender shape and beveled sides.
A little further on, on the Porta Nuova side, the new "city" of Milan is rising. Started in 2009, a gigantic construction site has made the Lombardy capital the most vertically developed Italian city. From the top of the pinnacles of the Duomo, the statues of the cathedral now face a forest of skyscrapers. The Palazzo Regione Lombardia, seat of the region, which reaches 161 m, has just been surpassed by the very aesthetic Torre Unicredit at 230 m high. Bounded by two behemoths of Milan's avant-garde architecture, the Central Station to the east and the Monumental Cemetery to the west, this once somewhat neglected neighborhood is the one that has undergone the most radical transformation in Milan. The inauguration in 2012 of Piazza Gae Aulenti, an architectural feat raised 100 meters above the ground, with water features and mirrors, has made this area one of the key poles of the metropolis.
Next door, Corso Garibaldi and Corso Como have become, over the last twenty years, avenues synonymous with trendy and exclusive parties. The trendy atmosphere of restaurants, boutiques, cafés and nightclubs has favored the birth of a fashionable and sometimes transgressive urban nightlife. Apart from a few metropolitan mythologies, the revaluation is well and truly at work. Even the Isola district, so called because it was once separated from the rest of the city by the Garibaldi train station (a pedestrian bridge allows you to cross the distance in a few minutes), is now being strongly revalued, especially thanks to the skilful recovery of industrial areas that are being transformed into precious lofts, large designer studios, bars and cultural centers. Less frequented than the historic center, but almost as trendy, it offers a good choice of places
to go out with an authentic and trendy atmosphere.Still in this urban area, we find the Monumental Cemetery, one of the most extravagant in Europe with its sculpted tombs. Don't miss the visit: the Milanese bourgeois who are buried here have given free rein to their wildest fantasies. Some have even reproduced Leonardo's Last Supper
, life size! Echoing the great projects at work, its impressive statuary observes, curious, the progressive transformation of the neighborhood, and seems determined to continue to want to be part of it. In this neighborhood, perhaps more than anywhere else, the urban fabric, so discontinuous and at the same time harmonious, allows one to perceive the unique character of Milan. In one street, you can admire Liberty style buildings of exquisite grace for the balance of their decoration and the workmanship of the wrought iron, just a few meters away you can see a casa di ringhiera, a traditional house with a balustrade of popular origin, decidedly romantic. From their peaks, the new skyscrapers of the Porta Nuova district now watch over the "old Milan". A polyhedron of styles, images and sensations that in their heterogeneity have come to define a mark, to determine a character.
