Milan has a reputation for being all business and no soul, and I have never once found that to be true at the table. This is a city that turns saffron into gold, that breads a veal chop until it…
Supporting Guide
How to Get to Milan (and Around Once You Arrive)
I have arrived in Milan more ways than I can count: bleary off a long-haul into Malpensa, breezing in on the M4 from Linate with an hour to spare before dinner, and rolling under the great iron canopy of Centrale…
The Best Time to Visit Milan: A Month-by-Month Guide
I have arrived in Milan in every kind of weather. In a damp February when the fog sat low over the Duomo and my breath hung in the air outside a cafe on Via Montenapoleone. In a blazing July when…
The Best Photo Spots in Milan
I have photographed Milan in every season, and I still arrive with a full memory card and a longer list than I can finish. This is a city that rewards people who look up, look down at the mosaic beneath…
The Best Day Trips from Milan
I have always thought Milan is at its most generous not in what it holds, but in what it puts within reach. Give me a morning, a coffee taken standing at the bar, and a ticket bought from a machine…
The Perfect Milan Itinerary: 2 to 3 Days
I have arrived in Milan by train more times than I can count, and the city always greets me the same way: a rush of grey stone, a flash of gold, and the smell of espresso pulled too fast. People…
How to See The Last Supper in Milan
I have stood in front of a great many paintings in my life, and very few have made me hold my breath the way Leonardo’s Last Supper did. Fifteen minutes is all you are given, and I spent the first…
Visiting the Milan Duomo and Rooftop Terraces
I have stood in a great many piazzas, and few undo me the way Piazza del Duomo still does. You come up out of the metro, or round the corner from the Galleria, and there it is: a mountain of…
Milan Shopping and Fashion Guide
I have shopped a great many cities, but Milan is the one that taught me the difference between buying clothes and understanding fashion. Here, the two are never separate. A morning on Via Montenapoleone is a lesson in proportion and…
Milan Aperitivo and the Navigli: An Evening Guide
I have never quite got over the civility of the Milanese evening. Somewhere around six, the city loosens its collar. The offices empty, the light goes gold along the tram lines, and a whole population that has spent the day…
Where to Stay in Bergamo
Where you sleep in Bergamo shapes the whole trip, because the city is really two towns stacked on a hill, and each offers a different kind of stay. My short answer is to sleep inside the walls of the upper…
The Best Things to Do in Bergamo
Bergamo rewards the traveller who slows down. The upper town is small enough to cross in fifteen minutes, which fools people into thinking they have seen it, when in fact the whole pleasure is in the lingering. Here is what…
