Milan is located in one of the most industrial regions of Italy and is not a prominent place for cultural tourism. It’s more of a place that comes alive through events. For example, while the city was quiet and calm, one day all the traffic was completely gridlocked by black Mercedes Vitos. We later learned that there was a fashion event that day. We were asked more than once by our Airbnb hosts which event we had come for in casual conversation. The fact that this region has some of the worst air quality on the European continent gives an idea of its industrial scale. It also has an important place on the continent in the software sector. For example, the headquarters of the company Bending Spoons, which owns products like Evernote and WeTransfer, is located here. Despite being such an industrial region, the local people have been pushed out of the city due to tourist targets. For example, one of our visits coincided with the traditional festival time of the city, but we didn’t see a single advertisement about it, couldn’t find a calendar on the internet despite specifically searching, and didn’t encounter any event despite being outside that day. Only very small-scale things were done, and in the evening, we couldn’t see anything other than leftover confetti from celebrations on some streets.
Of course, there are many places worth seeing. I think the foremost of these, but one I noticed is not very well known, is the monumental cemetery of the city. Being that it’s low on the list of travel guides and often not there at all, it might actually be the most beautiful place in the city. The cemetery is practically a giant sculpture museum. A part of the area was used as a Jewish cemetery, a part is a crematorium and a mausoleum, and in the remaining part, on almost every grave, there are sculptures that tell stories about the people lying underneath. This is a truly extraordinary environment where you will stand in front of every single grave for a whole day and think about what the sculpture is trying to say. To come here by public transport, you have to be willing to walk a bit, but it’s worth it. Coming here on foot after visiting Piazza Gae Aulenti and seeing the Bosco Verticale could be a nice route.
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| Sculptures at the Monumental Cemetery |
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| Mausoleum in the Monumental Cemetery |
Pinacoteca di Brera is the most important museum in the city. I think it is also one of the most important in the world. After entering this museum, we canceled our plans for the rest of the day and completed the day here. There are paintings done by important representatives of different periods and significant art movements here. The work that impressed me the most is “St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria” by Gentile Bellini, the painter who also made the portrait of Mehmed the Conqueror. It is very impressive how the painter was influenced by his visit to Turkey and brought together the things he saw anachronistically on this scale. The description of the painting was written by Orhan Pamuk.
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| St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria by Gentile Bellini |
There is a fairly comprehensive natural history museum in the city. In the museum, besides living beings, there is a comprehensive exhibition about minerals. Here there are fossils from different periods, models, and diorama sections. Especially because exhibitions related to hominids have disappeared in Turkey, the detailed fossils and descriptions here are very valuable. Along with the dioramas, they are small but very numerous.
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| Some fossils in the Natural History Museum |
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| A diorama in the Natural History Museum |
Sforzesco Castle is a castle that looks brand new along with the moat surrounding it. I didn’t do research on the history of the castle, but because its battlements are decorative and some facades have windows close to the ground, it felt like it was designed more to be a bit flashy rather than to resist a siege. There are sometimes public events here, so it might be good to check if there is an event during your holiday and plan your visit for the day of the event. I caught a concert here by chance.
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| The inner courtyard of Sforzesco Castle. |
The Duomo cathedral, an important example of gothic architecture that tops every tourist list about the city, is a very magnificent structure. There are different options to visit, with or without museum entry and in terms of going up to the top of the cathedral. We entered with tickets that included museum entry and going up to the roof of the cathedral by stairs. Its roof, reached by climbing 250 steps, is at least as impressive as the inside of the cathedral. When you look from here, you see how much detail was put into even the places that are normally out of sight.
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| The roof of the Duomo |
In the museum, which is ticketed together with the Duomo and is located right next to it, there is a large exhibition related to both Catholic symbols and the cathedral. There is also a scaled miniature of the Duomo Cathedral here, and this miniature model allows you to examine the structure from an angle you cannot see during your visit to the cathedral. Also, stained glass windows or statues that were used in the cathedral and replaced are here. Going up to the roof might be optional, but this museum is definitely as important as the cathedral itself and must be visited.
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| The Wooden Miniature of the Cathedral |
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is an arcade located right next to the Duomo. There are second-rate ice cream parlors and luxury brand stores here. It is quite a beautiful structure to appreciate architecturally. It is absolutely terrible for shopping. At this point, let me give you a small tip for eating Italian-style ice cream, which is quite different from Turkish-style ice cream. To eat quality ice cream, prefer ice cream shops in neighborhoods far from the city center, where you can’t tell it’s an ice cream shop from 2 km away, and which have no particular allure. These ice cream shops are closed in winter because Italian ice cream has a short shelf life. Especially stay away from ice cream shops selling ice cream in touristy places. There is a bull figure on the floor in the middle of this arcade, and when you go, you will see people putting their heels on the bull’s testicles and spinning around to take videos. Even though things like this don’t appeal to me, the fact that the marble floor in the testicle area is worn out because people have been doing this movement for a long time indicates that it has been a tradition for a very long time.
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| Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II |
Museo del Novecento is a contemporary art museum in the city. I am quite glad I went here on a day when it was free because even though there were works by names like Picasso, its selection was very narrow.
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| An artwork in Museo del Novecento |
There is a Chinatown in the city that is more than 100 years old. Here you can find many street food-themed restaurants and souvenir sellers. The souvenir shops are very nice, but regarding food, after walking two laps on the main street, we had to go to the doner kebab shop at the exit of the neighborhood. We are not bad with Chinese food, but here we had doubts about hygiene and couldn’t find a place that we felt comfortable with.
Continuing with food, there is a street food in Milan called panzerotti, which is made by putting pizza ingredients inside what we call pişi (fried dough). The most highly recommended place for this is Panzerotti Luini. This is an extraordinarily delicious on-the-go snack for between meals and we liked it a lot.
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| Panzerotti Luini |
There are many pizzerias in the city. I tried a few of them by looking at Google Maps reviews and didn’t come across a bad pizzeria. However, one of them stands out from the rest. “Piz” is a pizzeria near the city center and there are only 3 types of pizza on its menu, and none of them have a lot of ingredients. They produce products with a small variety of ingredients but high quality, where you can taste each ingredient separately. We ordered a classic pizza with tomato, cheese, and basil. Since these ingredients are the colors of the Italian flag, this is a type you can encounter on almost every pizzeria’s menu as a three-color pizza. We also ordered a pizza with cheese and chives and absolutely loved it. It’s worth remembering that here and in many places close to the Duomo, a service fee is paid in addition to the prices on the menu.
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| Two of the 3 pizzas on Piz’s menu |
You can type “Osteria” into the map application and go to many local restaurants, and when you choose from the highly rated ones, there seems to be no chance of going to a bad restaurant. Our favorite was Osteria da Fortunata. It has two branches, and we went to the branch on Moscow street. A part of its kitchen is designed like the restaurant’s window display, and you can see the staff from the outside. I went here twice at different times and tasted many of their pastas, and in general, they are good. But the reason I went to the same restaurant again was not the pasta, but the desserts. I ate the best tiramisu and one of the best cheesecakes of my life here. Also, the fortified wine made from muscat grapes, which you can order over the meal, was very delicious.
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| Two different pastas at Osteria da Fortunata |
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| Cheesecake and yellow moscato |
There is a neighborhood in the city called Navigli, with water canals running through it. This is a complete tourist neighborhood with its beautiful atmosphere and low-quality restaurants. I wouldn’t recommend coming here to eat something, but it could be ideal for having a drink. We went to an Alice in Wonderland themed place, one of the places with the highest ratings, and we were not satisfied with what we ate for the first time. Actually, it would be a mistake to expect a place that specifically targets tourists to provide quality service anyway, but one can go and enjoy it with low expectations.