Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Milan Itineraries
If you have only 1 day in Milan
Book ahead—at least 2 weeks in advance if possible—for the very first
entry time of the day (8:15am) to see
Leonardo da Vinci's
Last Supper.
Head east to Milan's gargantuan
Castello Sforzesco
for Michelangelo's
final
Pietà
and a clutch of fine Renaissance paintings. Stroll down the
largely pedestrianized Via Dante, pausing for a cappuccino break in one of
its many cafes, to Piazza del Duomo and Milan's enormous Gothic
Duomo.
Be sure you make it up onto the roof—my favorite Milan experience—to
duck under buttresses and wend your way between the statue-topped
spires for thrilling citywide panoramas that, on the few winter days when
industrial smog doesn't interfere, stretch all the way to the Alps. Join the
throngs of locals and businessmen on break and grab a
panzerotto
from
Luini
for a typical Milan lunch on the go, and then wash it down with a
view of the Duomo facade and Italy's prototypical aperitif, a Campari-soda,
in the very bar that invented it,
Caffè della Zucca.
Amble through the glass atrium of the historic
Galleria Vittorio
Emanuele II,
ending up in front of
La Scala
opera house, where you can
visit the operatic collections in its
Museo Teatrale
and check into last-
minute tickets for that night's performance. While you window-shop the
world-famous boutiques of
Quadrilatero d'Oro,
pop into the private col-
lections of the
Museo Poldi Pezzoli
for 30 minutes, whetting your
appetite for the artistic giants in the
Pinacoteca di Brera,
where you can
peruse the paintings until they kick you out at 7:30pm. Hop on a tram
down to the
Navigli,
Milan's trendiest restaurant district and nightlife
scene, strung out along the remnants of the city's old canals.
girder a few days before the Galleria opened in 1878. His shopping mall par excel-
lence provides a lovely route between the Duomo and Piazza della Scala and is a
fine locale for watching the flocks of well-dressed Milanese.
The Last Supper
What draws so many visitors to Milan is the
Cenacolo Vinciano,
better known to
English-speakers as
Leonardo da Vinci's
Last Supper
55
(Piazza Santa Maria
delle Grazie, 2, a wide spot along Corso Magenta;
%
02-89421146; www.
cenacolovinciano.it;
€
6.50 plus a required booking fee of
€
1.50; Tues-Sun
8:15am-7pm; Metro: Cardona or Conciliazione).
From 1495 to 1497, Leonardo da
Vinci painted this poignant portrayal of confusion and betrayal for the wall of the
refectory in the Dominican convent attached to the church of Santa Maria delle
Grazie. Aldous Huxley called this fresco the “saddest work of art in the world,” a
comment in part on the deterioration that set in even before the paint had dried
on the moisture-ridden walls. The fresco got a lot of well-intentioned but poorly
executed “touching up” in the 18th and 19th centuries, though a recent lengthy
