Milan
The Navigli Canals, Darsena & Porta Ticinese — Milan's Canal District
The Navigli district — the canal quarter of southwestern Milan, centered on the Naviglio Grande and Naviglio Pavese canals — is the most atmospheric and bohemian neighbourhood in the city, the remnant of an extraordinary medieval and Renaissance hydraulic engineering system that once connected Milan with the Po valley, the Alps, and the sea, and that Leonardo da Vinci helped to improve during his time at the Sforza court.
The Duomo, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II & Piazza del Duomo
The Piazza del Duomo — the central square of Milan, dominated by the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and flanked by the most magnificent 19th-century shopping arcade in Europe — is the physical and symbolic heart of the city and the ensemble that defines Milan's identity as both a medieval ecclesiastical capital and a modern commercial metropolis.
Isola, Porta Nuova & the Bosco Verticale — Milan's New Skyline
The Porta Nuova development — the 2000s-2010s urban regeneration project that transformed the former industrial and railway land north of the historic city centre into Milan's most ambitious contemporary architectural district — has fundamentally altered the skyline of the city and established Milan as the most architecturally adventurous major city in Italy.
The Triennale Design Museum, Salone del Mobile & Milan's Design Legacy
Milan is the global capital of furniture and industrial design — a position it has held since the post-war 'Italian economic miracle' of the 1950s-60s when Milanese designers, engineers and manufacturers collaborated to create the most influential body of modern furniture design in the world, establishing brands like Cassina, B&B Italia, Zanotta, Kartell, Driade and Arteluce as the global leaders of high-end furniture and lighting.
The Fashion Quadrilateral — Via Montenapoleone, Via della Spiga & Milan's Luxury Heart
The Quadrilatero della Moda (the Fashion Quadrilateral, the roughly rectangular area bounded by Via Montenapoleone, Via della Spiga, Via Sant'Andrea and Via Alessandro Manzoni) is the most prestigious luxury shopping district in the world — a concentration of Italian and international haute couture, high fashion, and luxury goods that has no equivalent in density or prestige in any other city, including Paris.
Sant'Ambrogio Basilica, the Columns of San Lorenzo & the Ticinese Quarter
The Ticinese quarter of southwestern Milan — the area between the Navigli canals and the Duomo, centered on the ancient pilgrimage road (now the Corso di Porta Ticinese) — contains the two most important early Christian and Romanesque monuments in Milan: the Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio (the 4th-century foundation of Milan's patron saint, one of the oldest churches in Christendom) and the Columns of San Lorenzo (the only surviving Roman monument in Milan above ground).
Leonardo's Last Supper, Santa Maria delle Grazie & Castello Sforzesco
The western quarter of central Milan, along the Corso Magenta axis, contains two of the greatest monuments of Milanese Renaissance culture: Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper' (the mural painting in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, considered one of the greatest paintings ever made) and the Castello Sforzesco (the massive 15th-century fortress of the Sforza dynasty, which today houses the most important civic museum complex in Milan).
Teatro alla Scala — The World's Greatest Opera House
The Teatro alla Scala (La Scala, Piazza della Scala, the opera house built 1776-1778 by Giuseppe Piermarini for Maria Theresa of Austria and inaugurated in August 1778 with a performance of Antonio Salieri's 'Europa riconosciuta') is the most important and most celebrated opera house in the world — the institution where the careers of Verdi, Puccini, Toscanini, Callas, and virtually every major singer and conductor of the 19th and 20th centuries were made and defined.
Milanese Cuisine — Risotto alla Milanese, Ossobuco & the Food Markets
Milan's culinary tradition is one of the most distinctive in Northern Italy — a cuisine shaped by the Po valley agricultural landscape, Alpine proximity, French influence (during the centuries of Spanish and Austrian rule), and the city's unique position as Italy's financial and industrial capital: richer, more butter-based, and more international in flavour than the tomato-and-olive-oil cooking of central and southern Italy.