Milan itinerary — 4 days

Milan's legendary opera house, inaugurated in 1778 and designed by neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini. It has staged world premieres by Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, and Bellini, maintaining its status as a pinnacle of world opera. The horseshoe auditorium boasts gilded tiers and a grand Bohemian chandelier. The attached theatre museum provides historical exhibits and views into the hall.

Milan's premier art museum, established in 1776 by Empress Maria Theresa inside the neoclassical Palazzo Brera. The collection spans major Italian Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces, including Raphael's Marriage of the Virgin, Mantegna's Dead Christ, Hayez's The Kiss, and works by Caravaggio and Bellini. The courtyard features Canova's bronze statue of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker.

Porta Nuova, located in Milan, is a modern business district that showcases futuristic architecture and design. The area features the Piazza Gae Aulenti, known for its fountains and outdoor cafes, as well as pedestrian walkways lined with fashion boutiques, trendy bars, and stylish restaurants. Notable architectural landmarks include the UniCredit Tower by César Pelli and the eco-friendly Vertical Forest residential complex with tree-covered terraces.

Two residential towers in Milan's Porta Nuova district that became a global icon of sustainable urban design. Designed by Stefano Boeri and opened in 2014, the facades host more than 800 trees and 15,000 perennial plants that absorb carbon dioxide, filter dust, and regulate temperatures. The best vantage points to admire the living greenery are from the Biblioteca degli Alberi park and Piazza Gae Aulenti.

Graffiti-covered Isola is a hip enclave of tiny streets crammed with a quirky mix of fashion boutiques, organic food shops and thrift stores. Cozy family-run trattorias sit next to cool cafes in leafy courtyards, and dive bars in former warehouses attract bikers, punks and students. Weekend flea markets surround the Renaissance church of Santa Maria alla Fontana, known for its frescoed arcades.

A colossal contemporary art space carved out of a former industrial workshop in Milan's Bicocca district, opened in 2004 with backing from Pirelli and run as a nonprofit: admission to every exhibition is free. In the long Navate halls stands Anselm Kiefer's permanent installation 'The Seven Heavenly Palaces', concrete towers rising amid steel trusses. Rotating shows fill thousands of square metres, on a scale conventional museums rarely match.

A Renaissance masterpiece in central Milan near Via Torino, famous worldwide for Donato Bramante's astonishing optical illusion. Faced around 1480 with lack of space due to an adjacent street, Bramante designed a painted stucco trompe-l'œil choir: a relief just 97 centimetres deep that appears to be a majestic vaulted apse over ten metres long. The church also incorporates the ancient 9th-century Romanesque chapel of San Satiro.

A medieval square steps away from the Duomo that served as Milan's commercial and judicial heart from the 13th to the 18th century. It is framed by the Palazzo della Ragione of 1233, the Loggia degli Osii decorated with coats of arms of noble families, and the Casa dei Panigarola. Behind a narrow passage hides a stone island of calm: reliefs, Latin inscriptions and ancient shop signs.

San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore is called the 'Sistine Chapel of Milan': its 16th-century interiors are covered wall to wall with frescoes by Bernardino Luini and his circle. The church has two halls — one for the nuns of the Benedictine monastery, one for townspeople — and part of the choir paintings is attributed to the nuns themselves. Entry is free, and the Civic Archaeological Museum stands right next door.

The Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio is one of Milan's oldest and most sacred churches, founded by Saint Ambrose in the 4th century and rebuilt in the 12th century as a masterpiece of Lombard Romanesque architecture. An expansive arcaded atrium precedes the facade, flanked by twin bell towers of differing heights. Highlights include the 9th-century golden altar of Vuolvino, the Roman Stilicho sarcophagus, and the crypt holding Saint Ambrose's relics.

Italy's foremost science and technology museum, established in 1953 within a serene 16th-century Olivetan monastery in Milan. The museum's premier attraction is the Leonardo da Vinci Galleries, exhibiting over 170 historic working models built directly from Da Vinci's sketches. Expansive pavilions and outdoor yards display historic steam locomotives, pioneer aircraft, the Enrico Toti submarine, and a full-scale Vega space rocket.

A masterpiece of Lombard Renaissance architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage site, this Dominican church was built in the late 15th century. Its Gothic nave connects to a monumental tribune and dome designed by architect Donato Bramante for Duke Ludovico Sforza. In the adjoining convent refectory hangs Leonardo da Vinci's legendary mural, The Last Supper, painted between 1495 and 1498 and celebrated as a pinnacle of Western art.

One of football iconic cathedrals, officially named Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, with a capacity exceeding 75,000 spectators. Located in Milan San Siro district, it is the shared home of Italian football giants AC Milan and Inter Milan. Guided stadium tours lead through the players locker rooms, the walk-out tunnel to the pitch edge, and the dedicated museum of historic jerseys and trophies.

A museum of 20th-century art inside the Arengario palace on the Duomo square, facing Milan's cathedral. The collection moves chronologically from Futurism with Balla and Boccioni through de Chirico's metaphysical painting to postwar experiments and Italian design. The spiral staircase and panoramic windows frame views of the cathedral, and the room of Lucio Fontana's slashed canvases is the museum's signature.

Milan Cathedral took almost six centuries to build — from 1386 to the mid-1900s: Candoglia marble, 135 spires and some 3,400 statues. The fifth-largest church in the Christian world, with rooftop terraces overlooking the Alps. The golden Madonnina on the main spire is the unofficial symbol of the city.

A remarkable church in central Milan located just a short walk from the Duomo. It is world-famous for its macabre ossuary chapel, whose walls are entirely covered in decorative motifs, niches, and crosses made from thousands of human skulls and bones retrieved from a 13th-century hospital cemetery. Above the eerie Baroque bone arrangements, the vault features an exquisite 1695 fresco by Sebastiano Ricci depicting ascending angels.

A 1930s Milanese villa by architect Piero Portaluppi for the Necchi Campiglio family, part of the city's textile aristocracy. Its rationalist architecture — art deco interiors, a swimming pool and tennis court in the garden — survives with original furnishings. The villa served as a set for Luca Guadagnino's 'I Am Love' with Tilda Swinton; today this FAI house museum is visited by guided tour only.

Fondazione Prada is a prominent contemporary art and culture complex situated in southern Milan. Transformed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA from a century-old distillery, the campus merges industrial heritage with bold modern architecture, including the 24-carat gold-leaf Haunted House and the nine-story white concrete Torre. The venue hosts cutting-edge international exhibitions, an art cinema, and the whimsical Bar Luce designed by Wes Anderson.