Duomo & San Babila in Milan

The centre is Milan's great meeting ground. The Duomo dominates a huge piazza shared by visitors, persistent touts and local residents, while the nineteenth-century Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II forms the city's celebrated sitting room, or 'il salotto di Milano'. The neoclassical Palazzo Reale stands on the other side of the cathedral. La Scala and museums such as Museo del Novecento and Gallerie d'Italia are close by, and the compact layout makes it easy to move between the principal sights on foot.

Getting around Duomo & San Babila

For the Duomo, take the red M1 metro line: its station opens almost directly in front of the cathedral. The yellow M3 also reaches Duomo from Stazione Centrale. Trams 1, 2, 3, 12, 15 and 19 stop around Piazza del Duomo. Tram 1 is the vintage orange vehicle, rattling past La Scala and through the northern part of the centre; trams 12 and 19 continue along Via Larga, with stops close to Santuario di San Bernardino alle Ossa.

Duomo

Six centuries of work made the Duomo a fitting emblem of Milan's imagination and drive. Its pale Candoglia-marble exterior is crowded with 135 spires and 3400 statues, giving the cathedral the delicate, almost jewelled appearance of a fairy-tale crown despite its immense scale.

A project that outlived its makers

Giangaleazzo Visconti initiated the cathedral in 1386, when its proposed design seemed almost impossible to execute. Milan dug canals to bring the required marble into the centre and developed new building techniques for a project of unprecedented size. Fashion then turned against the Gothic style, dismissing it as 'too French', so the building accumulated different visual languages as decades became centuries. In Milanese speech, a job that never seems to finish can still be compared with the Duomo: 'Lungh 'me la fabrica del domm', meaning as long as the Duomo works.

The cathedral's nineteenth-century face

In 1805, while he was king of Italy, Napoleon offered to pay for the Duomo's completion in time for his coronation. The architect responded by adding a lavish layer of neo-Gothic detail, reviving the spirit of the original plan. The stone pinnacles, cusps, flying buttresses, arches and more than 3000 statues seen outside are, in almost every case, nineteenth-century additions.

Up among the spires

The terraces are reached by 250 steps or by the slow lift. Up there, 135 spires rise within touching distance, surrounded by a thicket of flying buttresses and 150 gargoyles intended to repel evil spirits. At the centre is the fifteenth-century octagonal lantern and spire, crowned by the golden Madonnina, installed in 1774. For more than a hundred years she marked Milan's highest point at 108.5m. The Pirelli skyscraper took that distinction in 1958, so a copy of the Madonnina was placed on it and on every later tower that dared to rise higher.

A coffee pause in Palazzo Reale

For a quick coffee or a light bite after the climb, slip into Giacomo Caffè inside Palazzo Reale. Its lively old-world atmosphere feels more like a period Milanese meeting place than a pause beside one of Italy's busiest monuments.

Inside the Duomo

The interior is easiest to appreciate when you imagine it without the modern crowds and with much less light. Italy's largest cathedral uses epic proportions throughout: 52 columns divide five naves, and even the organ follows the grand scale. Above the apse, huge stained-glass windows hold the eye with illuminated biblical narratives.

The richest works include the Altar to the Virgin of the Tree on the north side. In front of it stands the 5m Trivulzio candelabrum, an exceptional medieval bronze work. Across the cathedral is the striking mausoleum made for Gian Giacomo Medici in 1564. A gap in the choir stalls gives access to the crypt, where visitors can pay their respects to Carlo Borromeo, Milan's cardinal archbishop from 1564-84.

Museo del Duomo

Guido Canali designed the Museo del Duomo as a companion to the cathedral. Its galleries use grimacing gargoyles and luminous angels to tell the story of the building's six-century creation.

Marble, sunlight and a flayed saint

Look down at Pellegrino Tibaldi's polychrome floor, which covers 11,700 sq metres. The pink and white Candoglia marble came from the cathedral's quarries at Mergozzo, granted to the project in perpetuity by Giangaleazzo; black marble was brought from Varenna and red marble from Arzo. Near the main entrance, a brass line marked with zodiac signs is an eighteenth-century sundial installed by astronomers from the Accademia di Brera in 1783. A shaft of sunlight enters through a hole in the south aisle vault and reaches different points at astronomical noon according to the season. Its accuracy kept Milan's clocks aligned until the nineteenth century.

Marco d'Agrate's 1562 Saint Bartholomew is one of the cathedral's strangest sculptures. The artist, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, shows the martyr after torture, his removed skin hanging over his shoulders like a shawl. Sixteenth-century sculptors favoured this subject because it displayed both anatomy and carving skill; look behind the figure and the skin even forms the outline of the saint's head.

Museo del Novecento

Palazzo dell'Arengario faces Piazza del Duomo and gives Milan's twentieth-century art museum a superb view of the cathedral. The collection is arranged around a futuristic spiral ramp, a deliberate nod to the Guggenheim, and includes artists such as Boccioni, Campigli, Giorgio de Chirico and Marinetti.

Palazzo dell'Arengario

The Arengario was begun in 1939, during the fascist regime, but its completion came only after that regime had fallen. Piero Portaluppi, Giovanni Muzio, Pier Giulio Magistretti and Enrico Griffini created two matching buildings, each with a three-level arcaded facade and little ornament beyond bas-reliefs by the Italian sculptor Arturo Martini. Martini's work is now represented inside the museum.

When the complex was finished in 1956, its political associations made it seem out of step with the new Italy. The buildings nevertheless found a later role, and in 2010 the Arengario became the home of Museo del Novecento.

A century of Italian modernism

The permanent display follows a broad chronology and puts Italian artists at the centre. Energetic Futurist rooms feature Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra and Gino Severini; the route then turns to the dreamlike metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico and Giorgio Morandi. An entire floor is given to Lucio Fontana's cut canvases and radiant, looping light works.

Further highlights include Piero Manzoni's provocative Artist's Shit (1961), sculpture by Marino Marini and Alberto Burri's unconventional painted canvases. Taken together, the collection traces Italy's changing social mood through fascism, two world wars and the arrival of the technological age.

A gallery still in transition

At the time covered here, the fourth-floor rooms devoted to the 60s to the 80s were closed. The closure may relate to an €18.5 million expansion intended to add the second Arengario building and substantially enlarge the exhibition area, although it was not clear whether or when that project would happen.

Walking tour: Duomo to San Babila

This route crosses the busiest part of central Milan while revealing layers of the city's past. It begins in the medieval Piazza dei Mercanti, passes Palazzo Reale and the Gothic Duomo, follows the crowded Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and ends in the more contemporary Piazza San Babila.

1. Milan's medieval marketplace

Piazza dei Mercanti was the commercial heart of medieval Milan, as its name - Merchants' Square - makes clear. Among its surrounding buildings is Palazzo della Ragione, recognisable by porticoes on every side and a small relief depicting a peculiar half-woolly sow, an ancient emblem of Milan.

2. A Belle Époque pause

Cross the busy square to the refined Palazzo Reale, designed in the late eighteenth century by Giuseppe Piermarini, the architect favoured by Empress Maria Theresa. Visit for a strong temporary exhibition or for the bomb-damaged Sala delle Cariatidi, then take coffee at Giacomo Caffè, arranged like a 1900s bistro. Admission is adult/child €15/6.

3. Spires and devotion

The Duomo is next door. Giangaleazzo Visconti began it in 1386 and the work reached completion six centuries later. Even from outside, the building is astonishing: 135 spires carry a crowd of more than 3000 figures, among them saints, poets, a likeness of Mussolini and even a tiny Statue of Liberty.

4. The nineteenth-century arcade

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II opened in 1878 under Italy's first king, whose name it bears, and is often described as the world's oldest shopping arcade. Giuseppe Mengoni gave it a spectacular vaulted roof of iron and glass. Historic businesses include the Camparino bar, which has occupied part of the arcade since 1915.

5. Eight stone giants

On the way to La Scala, detour to the little-known Casa degli Omenoni, or House of the Giant Men. Eight sombre, bearded atlantes in a Michelangelo-inspired style decorate the facade. Sculptor Leone Leoni designed the building in 1565 as both his home and his workshop.

6. Corso Vittorio Emanuele II

Follow Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, the main link between Piazza del Duomo and Piazza San Babila. The street is lined with major chains, including Zara and Urban Outfitters, making it the district's straightforward stop for brand-led shopping.

7. San Babila's lion

End in Piazza San Babila. The square combines 1930s towers such as Torre Snia Viscosa with a less conspicuous old column, dated 1626 and topped by a lion, in front of the basilica. Local legend says the Venetians abandoned the lion there after a failed attempt to capture Milan.

More ways to experience the district

An opera night at La Scala

The auditorium of Teatro alla Scala announces itself with red velvet, silk, gilded stucco and a central chandelier carrying 383 bulbs. One of the world's most prestigious opera houses, it has welcomed the leading names of opera since opening in 1778, from Bellini and Verdi to Maria Callas and Pavarotti.

Seat prices range from €60 to €250, depending on location. A limited-view seat can cost as little as €15: arrive at the box office at 1pm on the day of the performance with your ID and ask about the remaining allocation. For the theatre's history, productions and celebrated performers, visit the Museo Teatrale alla Scala, where admission is adult/child €12/8.

The Galleria after dark

The neoclassical Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is a monumental iron-and-glass passage rather than a mere retail shortcut. Milan has treated it as its civic drawing room since 1877. Luxury shops include the original Prada store, while Cracco occupies four floors as a destination for food as well as a restaurant.

Daytime crowds can make the arcade feel hectic, so return later in the evening for a quieter look at its old-fashioned elegance. Beneath the central glass octagon, find the mosaic bull and join the local good-luck ritual: place a heel on the bull's anatomy and turn. So many people repeat the gesture that the relevant spot has been worn into a hole.

Gallerie d'Italia

The Gallerie d'Italia spreads the holdings of Fondazione Cariplo and Intesa Sanpaolo across three lavishly decorated palazzi. Admission is adult/child €10/free, and the collection is large enough to occupy an afternoon. Its three areas take different approaches: From Canova to Boccioni examines nineteenth-century Lombard painting and Milan's role in the Risorgimento's patriotic romanticism and the emergence of Futurism; Cantiere del '900 presents forceful postwar Italian art in the former Banca Commerciale Italiana headquarters; and the Caveau, a former bank vault, stores paintings not currently on display and can be seen on a guided tour.

Leave time for the Garden of Alessandro Manzoni, where contemporary sculpture includes work by Joan Miró and Giò Pomodoro. The gallery's restaurant and café, run by the team behind Aimo e Nadia, works well for lunch. Enter the museum from Via Manzoni.

Leonardo at the Ambrosiana

Cardinal Federico Borromeo founded the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in 1609, creating one of Italy's great libraries. Its holdings exceed a million volumes and include nearly 40,000 manuscripts. Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus (1478-1517) is displayed in the last room of the visit, in a dark, book-lined setting where the drawings can be studied behind glass. Admission is adult/child €16.50/€11.50.

The library flows into the Pinacoteca, the picture gallery established ten years later. Its Italian paintings span the fourteenth to the twentieth century, including Leonardo's Ritratto di musico (Portrait of a Musician; 1485), the only male portrait he ever painted, and Caravaggio's intensely realistic Canestra di frutta (Basket of Fruit; 1597-1600). A crypt downstairs contains faded frescoes; it may require some imagination, or be easy to skip.

Contemporary photography at Osservatorio

The Osservatorio Fondazione Prada occupies the fifth and sixth floors of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and extends the style of Fondazione Prada into the city centre. Original wooden floors, reportedly retained at Signora Prada's request, suggest a refined Milanese sitting room, while steel gives the rest of the space a cooler edge. Exhibitions explore contemporary photography and new media, with past solo shows by Miranda July and video artist Dara Birnbaum. Huge windows bring the Galleria's glass-and-steel canopy close to eye level.

Admission is adult/child €10/5. If you also intend to visit Fondazione Prada within 14 days, the combined ticket is adult/child €15/7.50. Make the stop part of a Prada-themed circuit by visiting Pasticceria Marchesi 1824 below and viewing the original Fratelli Prada shop on the ground floor.

Bones and baroque light at San Bernardino

The Santuario di San Bernardino alle Ossa looks ordinary until you follow the corridor to the right of the entrance. There, an ossuary covers the walls with skulls, vertebrae, femurs and ulnae. The bones frame doorways, edge niches and form carefully arranged geometric designs. Admission is free. Above them, Sebastiano Ricci's seventeenth-century fresco Trionfo di anime in un volo di angeli (Triumph of Souls Among Flying Angels) fills the vault with a celestial counterpoint.

The setting impressed Portugal's King Giovanni V in 1738 so much that he commissioned a version in Evora. The church's macabre supply came from the cemetery of the nearby Ospedale Maggiore. Once the burial ground ran out of room, bodies were exhumed and their bones placed in a dedicated chamber created in 1210; the church came later.

Bramante's impossible apse

Leave the chain stores of Via Torino through a side street to reach Chiesa di Santa Maria Presso di San Satiro. Wedged between other buildings, it gives little away from the outside. Inside, a trompe l'oeil makes the apse appear ten times longer than it really is. Built between 1472 and 1482, the church is largely attributed to Bramante, who devised the illusion when the site allowed only 90cm of actual depth. From the entrance, the false perspective is remarkably convincing.

Eat, drink and shop

The listings below cover the central sights' most useful stops. Price symbols follow the local shorthand: € means budget, € € midrange and € € € top end. Hours are included exactly as a planning reference, but confirm them before setting out.

Sweets and quick bites

Trattorias and bistros

Michelin-star dining

Old-school coffee stops

Cocktails and aperitivo

Fashion and accessories

Food souvenirs