HISTORY OF MILAN:
The area of today's Milan was inhabited since the 6th century BC by a Celtic tribe, Insubri, conquered by the Romans in 222 BC. In 402 AD, the city was besieged by the Goths, and in 452 it was devastated by Attila, King of the Huns. In 569, the city was conquered by the Lombards, and in 774 surrendered to Charlemagne. Read More [...]
In 1162, Frederick I Barbarossa, the Emperor of Germany, destroyed Milan in just a few days. In 1183, the city became a duchy. In 1447, the Ambrosian Republic was established, but it collapsed 3 years later, in 1450, when Milan was conquered by Francesco I of the House of Sforza.
Louis XII, King of France between 1498 and 1515, claimed the Duchy of Milan in 1500. After the Spanish Emperor Charles V defeated the successor of Louis XII, François I, in the Battle of Pavia, in 1525, the northern Italy, including Milan, passed to the Spanish line of Habsburgs. Starting with 1713, Milan passed under Austrian rule. In 1859, the city and the rest of Lombardy were incorporated into the Kingdom of Sardinia, which in 1861 was renamed Kingdom of Italy.
GEOGRAPHY OF MILAN:
Today, Milan is the second-most populous city in Italy, after Rome, and the capital of the Italian region Lombardy. The city is located in the northwestern part of the Po Valley, approximately halfway between the Po River to the south, the Alps to the north, the Ticino River to the west and the Adda River to the east. Read More [...]
The city is located 50 kilometers southwest of Bergamo, 86 kilometers west of Brescia, 151 kilometers north of Genoa, 218 kilometers northwest of Bologna, 272 kilometers west of Venice, 315 kilometers northwest of Florence, 600 kilometers northwest of Rome, and about 800 kilometers north of Naples.
TRANSPORT TO/IN MILAN:
Milan is serviced by three airports. The most important is the Milano-Malpensa Airport, located 45 kilometers northwest. The second is the Orio al Serio Airport, located 50 kilometers away, near Bergamo. The third is the Milano-Linate Airport, the closest to the city, located about 7 kilometers away. Read More [...]
To get to Milan from one of these airports, you can take one of the buses reaching the city. A bus ticket to and from each airport is between 10€ and 12€.
By train, a trip from Genoa takes between one hour and a half and 2 hours, and the cheapest ticket is 13.45€. From Bologna, the cheapest ticket is 16.80€ and the trip takes between 2 and 4 hours. From Venice, the trip takes between 2 and three and a half hours, and the cheapest ticket is 20.70€.
In Milan, you can travel by metro, tram or bus, all operated by Azienda Trasporti Milanesi S.p.A., and the same tickets are valid for any of these means of transport. Most of the city and the surrounding municipalities are contained in the fare zones Mi1 to Mi3. To travel within these zones, a single ticket costs 2€, a 24-hour ticket is 7€, a 3-day ticket is 12€, and a book of 10 tickets costs 18€.
TOURIST ATTRACTIONS IN MILAN:
Among the tourist attractions of the city, the famous Cathedral of Milan, also known as the Duomo, is the star. The massive Gothic church, along with the square in front and the nearby Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery, the Royal Palace and Museo del Novecento, are the starting point for discovering the city. Read More [...]
Worth mentioning are also the medieval Castello Sforzesco, the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, famous for housing Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, the second most important church in Milan, after the Duomo, La Scala Theater, one of the most renowned opera houses in the world, Arco della Pace, one of the finest Neoclassical triumphal arches in Europe, and the Monumental Cemetery of Milan, a beautiful open-air museum.