Milan Travel Guide

Milan Cathedral is one of the world's most magnificent and gorgeous Gothic churches. This marble church, pure white and covered with countless spires and statues, took centuries to build, a symbol of Milan and a stunning, gorgeous sight. Milan Cathedral stands on the Cathedral Square in central Milan, one of the largest, most magnificent and gorgeous Gothic churches in Italy and the world, and Milan's undisputed symbol. Immense and ornate, built of white marble over centuries, its most astonishing feature is the dense, exquisite Gothic decoration: the top is covered with over 130 tall white spires (each topped with a statue), and the facade and walls are studded with over 3,000 fine marble statues, reliefs and windows, pure white, spire upon spire, statues everywhere, gorgeous and sacred, like a flawless white marble masterpiece. Atop the highest spire stands a golden statue of the Virgin (Milan's protector). A unique experience is climbing to the rooftop terrace, walking among the spires and statues, and overlooking the city. Visiting Milan and admiring the gorgeous, stunning Milan Cathedral is a stunning sight.

Teatro alla Scala, opened in central Milan in 1778, is the Mecca of opera. Verdi's Nabucco and Otello, Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Turandot all premiered here. The house glows in red and gold, six tiers of horseshoe boxes ringing the stage like a halo, and its acoustics are reckoned among the finest on Earth — legend says even the softest sigh reaches the last row. When no performance is on, guided tours open the hall and stage, and the attached museum displays Verdi's baton, Toscanini's annotated scores and costumes of legendary divas. Tickets for a performance sell out weeks or months ahead online, and the dress code tradition endures.

Santa Maria delle Grazie is the church of Milan's Dominican convent, world-famous for Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper painted on the refectory wall next door. Founded in 1463, the church has a solemn brick Gothic facade, while Bramante's apse with its octagonal drum and dome is a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture. In the 1943 Allied bombing the refectory was almost flattened, yet the wall bearing the fresco miraculously survived. Viewing the Last Supper today requires booking weeks or months ahead, in 15-minute slots of about 30 visitors — among the hardest tickets in Milan, and all the more precious for it.

Opened in 2013 in a wing of the Royal Palace beside the cathedral, the Duomo Museum displays originals retired from the building itself: spire statues withdrawn after acid-rain erosion, replaced stained glass and wooden fittings, plus the terracotta scale models its masons worked from. Once you've studied these, the saints on the cathedral's pinnacles stop being distant silhouettes. The route's last stretch faces the cathedral's flank, eye-level with the spires through the windows - an unexpected finale. Combo tickets usually bundle it with the rooftop climb.

Named for the late architect Gae Aulenti, this circular plaza rose with the Porta Nuova redevelopment in 2012, lifted several metres above the streets so traffic flows beneath. Glass towers of the UniCredit complex ring it, the 231-metre main spire holding Italy's-tallest status for years, while the famed Vertical Forest twin towers stand a street away. A ring of water hugs the plaza's rim, floating the towers' reflections - Milan's new-skyline drawing room. After dark the light strips switch on and the city's most modern night scene assembles.

Santa Maria delle Grazie is a Renaissance monastery in Milan famed for Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper on its refectory wall. Painted 1495–1498, the masterpiece survived war and restoration and is seen only by timed, limited entry of about 15 minutes. Inscribed with the painting as a World Heritage Site in 1980, it is an unmissable pinnacle for art pilgrims.