Milan, Italy

By greatcopy

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The man ahead of me was clearly mad –talking to himself and gesturing as he walked along. Well-groomed, he wore a fine overcoat; it seemed such a shame. I saw several other obvious nutters before it clicked: Italians are surgically attached to their telefonini (cellphones), bluetoothed to the hilt, surviving bare minutes without a conversational “fix”.

The man was typical of Milan, stylish city of Italian fashion. One great advantage of visiting the city in January is the sales; with the pound at parity with the Euro, 70% reductions are a great help. The obvious disadvantage is it’s colder than Dundee, with snow lying, and freezing fog grounds planes for hours on end (my outbound flight was delayed 3½ hours). But it’s still the Christmas season in Italy, there are decorations everywhere, and at least one tram was sheeted in fairy lights (apart from the incongruous Coca-Cola advertisement on its roof). Also it’s a largely tourist-free month, so I had art galleries and churches (including Sta Maria delle Grazie, where Leonardo’s Last Supper graces the end wall of the refectory) pretty much to myself.

The city centre isn’t big – walking from the Arco della Pace to the Naviglio district, one side of the centre to the other, would haven take about half an hour if I hadn’t stopped. But it’s very hard not to; churches with 5th Century mosaics vie for attention with Roman ruins (Turin had one of the largest circuses in the Roman Empire), shops with all the latest fashions compete with bars to rest your weary feet and warm up in, and feral kittens play in the faint sun. Besides, why hurry?

In the evening the city centre’s quiet and the place to be is the Naviglio, down by the now-disused canals that made land-locked Milan one of Italy’s busiest ports right up until the 1950s. A student-y area, the shops are cheaper here, and there are fun restaurants with decent prices and good wine lists. Dinner can be taken very seriously in Italy, and on my first evening I had a meal that would have sent me home several pounds heavier if I’d carried on that way. The second evening I had a pizza – vast, and smothered in seafood – on my way to a concert in the Duomo to celebrate the end of 6 years’ restoration on the West front. The Duomo too is vast, and the music reverberated for 9 seconds at the end of each movement as it found its way round the dome, apse and side chapels.

On my last evening, in the Naviglio, I found a tapas bar, Mas!, with an interesting charging system: the first glass of wine (oh, what a wine – a rich, powerful blend of garnacha and cariñena that grabbed my attention) costs Eu7, which covers your food, with subsequent glasses Eu4 each. No wonder it was popular with the local students!

Happy hour is big in Milan but, although there were signs in every bar showing the effects of alcohol at different levels in both men and women of different weights (suggesting that the Italian Government is even more worried about consumption than the British), I only saw three drunks, happily singing their way down the street and being no trouble to anyone.

Three nights and 2 days are not nearly enough to see everything the guidebook recommended – 2 months probably wouldn’t be. But as I made for the airport on the final morning I was glad to have seen what I did. Would I go back? Yes – but next time in warmer weather.


I flew from Edinburgh to Milan Malpensa with EasyJet: check online for good deals from time to time. From Malpensa you can either take the train to Milan Central or the airport bus to the other station, east of the Castello Sforzesco in the centre of town.
I found my hotel, a small family-owned 3-star establishment, through HotelClub, again on the internet. It was comfortable, warm and friendly, with 24-hour access, and right in the centre of town. I walked everywhere, but there are good bus and tram services all over the city.
Like most Italian cities, Milan is probably best avoided in August, when Italy goes on holiday, turists crowd everything you want to see, and the heat can be intense. In January it was cold but empty, which suits me fine.




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