Milan City
The most over-used words in this guide are – unapologetically – chic and elegant. As Italy’s fashion capital (spawning the likes of Giorgio Armani, Prada, Versace and Dolce & Gabbana), Milan is serried with sleek boutiques, smart bars, swanky restaurants and glamorous clubs. Its inhabitants’ discerning tastes have pushed the envelope on design, vetoing foreign chains in favour of independent businesses. Milan is also a gateway to New York, Paris and London, and sets the pace for the rest of Italy. Residents compare it to New York’s Upper East Side, with which it shares a similar sense of sophistication, decadence, snobbery and vanity, and a love of lounge bars, partying and Sunday brunches.
All year round, Milan is one big catwalk show and its residents pay punctilious attention to this season’s fashion. A Milanese souvenir is most likely to be a pair of Prada shoes. However, the city remains notoriously provincial and conservative as it clings to its traditions and conventions; its fashion designers have thankfully filled a void by branching out with hip new bars, spas, restaurants and clubs.
Predictably, budget is not a familiar word in Italy’s richest city (and second largest, with a population of 1.2 million). Milan is also Italy’s financial capital and home to Italy’s stock exchange; its media capital, home to the country’s main advertising agencies, four national daily newspapers, major publishing houses and Berlusconi’s media empire; and design capital: with its annual furniture fair, La Fiera, plus a heritage of eminent architects, Milan has staked out its position as a world-class design centre. While Milan is dismissed as a cultural destination (buffs would head first to Rome, Florence or Venice), its relatively low count of highlights makes them perfectly manageable in a weekend; its compact size makes it easily negotiable by foot. Aesthetically it’s an eclectic city – some say ugly, because of a heavy industrial influence and arguably ill-judged rapid post-war expansion. Its architecture is a veritable timeline from the Roman Empire to the present, via Romanesque, Renaissance, neoclassical, belle epoche and Fascist eras. And Milan certainly has charm, thanks to its canals, cobbled streets and antique tram system, but it also has a dire pollution problem because of its position in the wind-free Po Valley and its proliferation of industrial plants.
An ancestry of wealth predicates Milan’s rather snobbish manner, where social strata are regarded as importantly as fashion labels. Thus, ‘Milanese’ is a byword for the middle-class (since that’s the majority in Milan); then there’s the borghesi (bourgeois) and the fighetti, the idle rich offspring of old Milanese money. The Hinterland are those in surrounding suburbia and the terroni (from the soil) hail from Southern Italy; both are treated as second-class citizens (as indeed are tourists and Milan’s immigrant community from China, Senegal, Sri Lanka, etc.). Of course, willowy international models and imported architects and fashion designers are considered great assets to the city.
Geographically, Milan lends itself well to a lifestyle of country retreats, weekend skiing, and summertime water sports. During the summer, high humidity and temperatures effect a centrifugal force on its residents and the whole city heads out to its border attractions to relax with aperitivo – another word that repeatedly crops up throughout this book. Aperitivo – or Milan’s daily ritual of after-work drinks and free food – suggests in a word the kind of quality of life that is enjoyed in Milan.
Navigli
he Navigli area comprises what is left of Milan’s canal system (‘navigli’ means ‘canals’) – now just two long canals and a dock, located south of the city centre. Milan’s entrepreneurs have capitalized on its canalside prettiness, making Navigli the stomping-ground of the city’s youth.
Fifteen years ago, the neighbourhood was characterized by bohemia: artists, musicians, poets, etc.; now it’s much less underground, but Navigli remains atmospheric, with a thriving nightlife and street scene. If subcultures (punks, Goths, graffiti kids, and the like) are to be seen anywhere in Milan, the chances are highest here. Navigli is spared the gloss of the Centro, making for an authentic window into old Milan. Old washhouses and tenement buildings line the canals, many of which are now art ateliers and antique shops, and old barges are moored up as cafés and overspills to the canalside bars and clubs.
Boat trips can be taken up the 50km long Naviglio Grande (the more western canal) to the village of Gaggiano, past classical houses and old mechanical features designed by Leonardo da Vinci (see Play). Work on the Naviglio Grande began in 1177 and was completed in 1257; it took as its source the Ticino river, which lies south-west of Milan, and finished in the Darsena (docks alongside Viale Gorizia). The other, Naviglio Pavese, was built in stages from the 14th century till 1819, and flows out for 33km from the Darsena back into the Ticino. Originally, Milan’s waterways were a citywide medieval structure built to ferry the marble building blocks from the quarries of Candoglia to the Duomo. The canal system also provided irrigation for the plains of Lombardy and served as an important trade link between the north and south, connecting a landlocked city to the country’s ports. In 1929, Milan’s canal network was mostly filled in to make way for roads as barges were superseded by road travel.
Now, Navigli is an eclectic patchwork of old and new. At its heart is Porta Ticinese, where the two canals and the docks meet; here traders were originally marshalled by two imposing pale yellow dazi (customs houses) that still preside at the centre of the action (although one contains a raucous bar and the other a Communist club). The main strip, Corso di Porta Ticinese, is packed with young, jeansy shops and hip yet cheap restaurants and bars, and leads north to the ancient Roman Colonne di San Lorenzo – 16 Corinthian columns that flank the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore. To the west is Porta Genova, an up-and-coming area where lots of fashion designers and photographers have opened studios. Also west is one of Milan’s most important churches, the Basilica of Sant’ Ambrogio, built in ad 386 by Milan’s patron saint, Ambrose. The two navigli themselves are crowded with tourists and students, who populate the bars, restaurants, cafés, art galleries, record shops, artisan boutiques and junk shops. Once a month is the Mercatone dell’Antiquariato along the Naviglio Grande, an antiques market selling bric-à-brac and collectibles. In the summer, the Navigli is besieged by cool crowds as both close to traffic after 8.30pm and canalside bars and cafés stay open till late for jazz and other live music.
Garibaldi and Parco Sempione
Parco Sempione and Garibaldi are two neighbouring districts, quite distinct in history and atmosphere. Parco Sempione encompasses wealthy West Milan with Castle Sforza as its nucleus. Garibaldi is in fact three incrementally industrial yet increasingly fashionable districts stacked northwards on top of each other and connected by Corso Garibaldi – Brera, Corso Como and Isola.
Within the park itself (Milan’s largest and most important, designed by Alemagna in the 19th century) are La Triennale, the 1930s fascist-style design museum, and Torre Branca, Milan’s mini-answer to the Eiffel Tower; latched onto the east side is the Arena, the Napoleonic amphitheatre. Hip new bars are cropping up around the park as well as the newly gentrified Chinatown (Italy’s largest). A prime spot is by the Arco della Pace, which was designed by Cagnola and erected between 1801 and 1814 for Napoleon and dedicated to peace in 1815 after Napoleon’s fall. Further out west is the San Siro football stadium and La Fiera, the vast exhibition halls that host Milan’s world-famous furniture fair each year (although plans to move it elsewhere are under way). And along Via Magenta to the southwest is Leonardo da Vinci’s ghostly Last Supper fresco in a Renaissance church refectory, and numerous aristocratic houses such as Palazzo degli Atellani where musicians and artists including Da Vinci were received as guests, and Palazzo Arese Litta, the 17th-century family residence of the Areses and then the Littas. More noble mansions stand along the tree-lined boulevards between Corso Magenta and Parco Sempione. To the east of Parco Sempione is the Cimitero Monumentale, the graveyard preserved for Milan’s richest inhabitants.
In between Parco Sempione and the centro storico is Brera, a charming historic quarter containing the Pinocateca di Brera (Milan’s most important art gallery) and all the artsy crowds that flock to it. A well-preserved labyrinth of windy cobbled streets with hidden palazzos and art galleries, bars, restaurants and cafés entice a large tourist crowd. The Milanese prefer to hang out in Corso Como, a short pedestrianised street that starts at the grand neo-classical arch of Porta Garibaldi and finishes at Garibaldi Station. This is Club Central, with eight clubs and plenty of warm-up bars and pizzerias. Since fashion muse Carla Sozzani opened her lifestyle concept store here, other fashion boutiques have followed suit, and by day it’s also a select, high-end retail zone.
North of the station is Isola. Its name, ‘island’, originates from its enclave status since it is hemmed in by Garibaldi’s railway; its residents think of it as a small town inside a larger town and share an endearing community spirit. Life here is far removed from the ways of the centre – while it previously has not been refined or safe, it’s always been bohemian. Isola is unique in Milan for having more relaxed planning regulations and gentrification is fast changing its industrial landscape. The last five years have seen Isola becoming more friendly and trendy, a move that is set to continue with the arrival of the Città della Moda in 2010 – a fashion city complete with catwalk, museum, school, library etc. Isola’s nightlife (centered around Via Borsieri and including two semi-legal egalitarian squats) is attracting the liberal types that previously characterized Navigli.
Porta Romana and Porta Venezia
On the east side of the city are the triumphal arches of Porta Venezia (north-east) and Porta Romana (south-east) – two of Milan’s city gates originally built as 16th-century Spanish fortifications and repeatedly rebuilt through history. Needless to say, you can head for Venice (east) by one, or for Rome (south-east) by the other.
The area around Porta Venezia is at once commercial, residential, historic and ethnic. To the south-east of the fascist monument Stazione Centrale are Middle Eastern, North African, Senegalese and Indian ghettoes, characterized by textile cottage industries and ethnic food outlets. On course for Monza is Corso Buenos Aires with over 3km of high-street chains and factory outlets.
Also a major traffic artery of Milan, Corso Venezia houses the other end of the retail spectrum with high fashion boutiques carried over from the quadrilatero d’oro. Look up, and there is an entirely different scene: historic aristocratic townhouses, from 15th-century Renaissance residences and 18th-century neoclassical houses to 19th-century neo-Palladian palazzos and turn-of-the-century Liberty façades (including the remarkable Palazzo Castiglioni); right at Porta Venezia is the Hotel Diana, famous for its Liberty features.
On the west side of Corso Venezia is Milan’s second biggest central park, Giardini Pubblici. Built in the 18th century by neo-classical architect Giuseppe Piermarini (who also designed La Scala and the Palazzo Reale), it was extended by Parco Sempione’s architect Alemagna in the next century to include the neo-classical Villa Reale, an ex-royal abode topped with toga-ed statues that now houses the Galleria d’Arte Moderna. The park also contains Milan’s natural history museum Civico Museo di Storia Naturale, the Museo del Cinema and the Planetario Ulric Hoepli. At the south end of Corso Venezia is the Basilica di San Babila, a Romanesque church first built in the 4th century, just at the edge of the commercial centre of Milan.
Porta Romana is situated in the middle of the thoroughfare Corso di Porta Romana, which heads south-east from Piazza Missori in the centro past the University of Milan and through the Piazzale Medaglie d’Oro, where the remains of the old 16th-century Spanish walls and the arch itself lie. While the area is both residential and industrial, Porta Romana is also punctuated by lots of fashionable bars, clubs and restaurants. Their distance away from the more commercial zones of the Centro, Corso Como and Navigli serves as a positive index of how hip a venue is, culminating in a cluster of fashionable establishments at the south end of Via Ripamonti (which splits off from Porta Romana). In between Porta Venezia and Porta Romana and heading due east is Corso di Porta Vittoria – of which several blocks are taken out by the majestic fascist architecture of Palazzo di Giustizia, Milan’s law courts, where some of Italy’s most important court cases are heard. Further east on this road is the historic monument to five very important days in Milan’s history in March 1848 (at Piazza 5 Giornate), when the whole of Milan demonstrated against Austrian rule, capturing the official government buildings and driving out the Hapsburg officials. Now a mighty sculpture and obelisk stand proud in the square in honour of the fallen.
Centro Storico
Milan’s small, compact nucleus is split neatly into two: the north-east half, comprising the fashion heart, or quadrilatero d’oro; and the south-west – the cultural heart, or centro storico. The quadrilatero d’oro (golden rectangle) is so-called for its dense concentration of designer fashion stores – the world’s highest, apparently. Bound within the equivalent of four Bond Streets are hundreds of boutiques from the world’s most powerful fashion houses. Of course beyond the quadrilatero d’oro virtually every other brand is accounted for as they vie for profits from the vast volumes of tourist traffic. All the way from Via Dante (which connects the centre to the castle), along the long porticoes of Piazza del Duomo and through to Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, are yet more boutiques from high street to high fashion. It’s easy to see how Milan is Italy’s commercial capital with the volume of consumerism indulged in here.
The centro storico (historical centre) is mostly pedestrianized – apparently the largest car-free city centre in Europe and home to some of Milan’s awesome sights. Right at the centre is the world’s third largest cathedral, the Gothic white marble Duomo, which took four centuries to build, and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a 19th-century shopping arcade par excellence, with its much-imitated glass and steel arched and domed roof. Milan’s peerless opera house Teatro alla Scala is also in the zone, as are numerous important museums and galleries, including the museum-cum-homes Museo Poldi Pezzoli and Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, the 18th-century neo-classical Palazzo Reale, which contains treasures from the Austrian empire, 19th-century novelist Alessandro Manzoni’s open house, and the museums of La Scala and the Duomo.
Totemic statues stand majestically in the Centro’s grand open squares – in Piazza del Duomo is a horse-mounted monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, Italy’s first king after unification in 1861. In Piazza della Scala is a vast bronze of honorary Milanese resident Leonardo da Vinci. All over the centre, modern sculptures are set against historic backdrops: here the old and the new sit side-by-side more so than anywhere else in the rest of Milan. The centre also comprises Milan’s commercial district, and just south of the quadrilatero d’oro are gleaming glass office blocks and corporate headquarters. As Italy’s financial capital, Milan’s financial heart also beats right here, with La Borsa Stock Exchange in Piazza Affari. The first stock exchange was established at Monte di Pietà in 1808 to meet the financial demands of the textile industry and was so successful that it has outgrown itself three times – this neoclassical 1930s building is now in its fourth incarnation.
The large influx of rich tourists heavily laden with this season’s fashions are amply catered for by some of Milan’s best five-star hotels, such as the Four Seasons, the Park Hyatt Milano, the Grand Hotel et de Milan and the Gray. Just about everything here, from tea salons like Cova and Peck, indulgent restaurants such as Nobu, Il Teatro and Boeucc, old-money clubs such as Nepentha, and chichi fashion bars, including Marino alla Scala and Dolce & Gabbana’s Martini Bar, is Milan at its most showy.
