Milan

Between the red brick facades of the Romanesque Saint Ambrose Basilica, the needle-like spires of the colossal city Duomo, the UNESCO-attested Santa Maria alle Grazie, the old fortress palaces of the Sforza-Visconti, and the grandiose domes of the Cimitero Monumentale, you could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that Milan is not a place buzzing with modern energy. But it is. Far from just a simple museum-piece city in the north, Milan is a gathering spot for Italy’s nouveau riche, the kingpin of its financial markets, and more popularly the epicentre of its global fashion trade. Yes, there are endless streams of grand churches and renaissance buildings to see, yes, there are sprawling exhibition spaces laden with some of the Continent’s most prized works, but Milan is not just for looking—it’s for living too. Ask your Milan tourist guide about grabbing tickets to a hotly-contested AC Milan game at the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium, or perhaps about the best trattorias to sample Milan’s legendary Italian mother style cooking. Then there are the hordes of coffee bars that cluster around the piazzas and hide beneath the medieval building faces everywhere in town.