Milan

Milan (Italian: Milano; Milanese: Milan) is the financial capital of Italy and home to the Borsa Italiana stock market. It is the country’s second most populated city proper, but it is also the center of Italy’s biggest urban and metropolitan region. While not as lovely as other Italian towns, the city has rebuilt itself into a flourishing international corporate metropolis after being heavily damaged by Second World War bomb strikes. In essence, what distinguishes Milan from other destinations for tourists is that the city is actually more about the lifestyle of enjoying worldly pleasures: a shopping, football, opera, and nightlife paradise. Milan is still the fashion capital of Italy, with fashion connoisseurs, supermodels, and worldwide paparazzi flocking to the city twice a year for the spring and autumn fairs.

Milan is famous for its wealth of historical and modern sights, including the Duomo, one of the world’s largest and grandest Gothic cathedrals, La Scala, one of the world’s best established opera houses, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, an ancient and glamorous arcaded shopping gallery, the Brera art gallery, which houses some of Europe’s finest artistic works, the Pirelli tower, a majestic example of 1960s modernist Italian architecture, and the San Siro, a huge and As a result, there are both ancient and modern monuments. It also has one of the most renowned paintings in the world, Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

Milan is essentially visitable all year, depending on how you wish to experience the city. Remember that most businesses, including tourist attractions and museums, are closed on Mondays.

The weather in fall is warm/cold, and later months may be fairly damp and foggy. The city’s residents are quite busy with work at this time of year, so the only people you’re likely to encounter roaming about are visitors. Because it is the working season, all of the main venues and stores are open.

The city may become chilly in the winter (typically below or near freezing), and the weather is frequently foggy and wet, if not snowing. However, in the few weeks leading up to Christmas, the city transforms into a delight to visit: the main sights are all illuminated by stunning lights, a massive Christmas tree is set up in front of the Duomo, vendors and markets can be found everywhere, many shop and display windows are decorated, and the streets become bustling with locals and tourists alike. The main disadvantage is that it may get quite crowded, loud, and bustling.

The weather in spring is comparable to that in fall. People return to work, and the mood becomes more peaceful yet serious, in contrast to the winter. As the trees bloom, parks become more appealing to visitors. The city is extremely enjoyable to visit during Carnival, when people dress up and rejoice, and around Easter, when churches have special services and special festivities.

In the summer, Milan may get very hot and humid, with the occasional heavy rainfall. Apart from the weather, most stores stay open in July; nevertheless, as many residents go for their summer vacations in August, many companies and venues close (with the notice Chiuso per ferie, or shut down for vacation). With just the occasional visitor roaming about and many of the city’s key attractions closed, the city may become extremely desolate. Despite the fact that it’s not the ideal time for shopping and the weather isn’t always nice, it’s excellent if you want to appreciate the city to yourself when it’s quiet, and maybe meander about, drinking at the occasional open bar or eating ice cream, or strolling in a peaceful park.

Milan is situated in the Po Valley’s northwestern part, almost halfway between the Po River to the south and the Alps’ foothills with the major lakes (Lake Como, Lake Maggiore, Lake Lugano) to the north, the Ticino River to the west, and the Adda River to the east. The highest point is 122 meters (400.26 feet) above sea level. The administrative commune has an area of around 181 square kilometers (70 square miles), a population of 1,324,169 in 2013, and a population density of 7,315 individuals per square kilometer (18,950/sq mi). A wider metropolitan region that includes portions of the provinces of Milan, Monza e Brianza, Como, Lecco, and Varese is 1,891 square kilometers (730 square miles) in size and has a population of 5,264,000, with a population density of 2,783 individuals per square kilometer (7,210/sq mi).

The city center’s circular form echoes the Navigli, a historic system of navigable and interconnecting canals that is now largely buried. The city’s suburbs have mostly developed to the north, absorbing several communes on their way to Varese, Como, Lecco, and Bergamo.

While Rome is the political capital of Italy, Milan is the country’s economic and financial center. The province of Milan contributes around 9% of the national GDP (€132.5 billion in 2010), whereas the economy of the Lombardy region generates nearly 20% of Italy’s GDP (€325 billion in 2010, almost the size of Belgium).

Milan is home to around 45 percent of enterprises in Lombardy and more than 8 percent of all firms in Italy, including three Fortune 500 corporations. Milan is home to several media and advertising firms, national newspapers, and telecommunications corporations, including the public service broadcaster RAI as well as commercial television companies such as Mediaset, Telecom Italia Media, and Sky Italia. Furthermore, the city has experienced a tremendous development in internet firms, with both local and foreign corporations such as Altervista, Google, Lycos, Virgilio, and Yahoo! establishing their Italian offices there. Milan is a significant international fashion center, with 12,000 enterprises, 800 show rooms, and 6,000 sales outlets (including labels such as Armani, Versace, Valentino, and Luxottica), and four weeks of premier exhibitions and other fashion events each year. The city is also a key industrial center, particularly for the automobile sector, with businesses like Alfa Romeo and Pirelli having a strong presence there. Chemicals, equipment, medicines, and plastics are among the other key items manufactured in Milan.

Other important economic areas in the city include advanced research in health and biotechnologies, chemicals and engineering, and banking and finance. Milan is home to the majority of Italy’s banking firms (198), notably Banca Popolare di Milano, Mediobanca, Banca Mediolanum, and UniCredit, as well as over forty international banks. In addition, the majority of asset management firms are headquartered in Milan, including Anima Holding, Azimut Holding, ARCA SGR, and Eurizon Capital. The city is home to the Associazione Bancaria Italiana, which represents the Italian banking sector, as well as the Milan Stock Exchange (which has 225 businesses registered on it). The city has one of Europe’s biggest trade fair systems, with over 1,600,000 m2 (17,222,257 sq ft), and over 4.5 million people from all over the globe attend the approximately 75 main events each year, as well as the high-tech conference centers. Tourism is becoming an increasingly significant aspect of the city’s economy: in 2010, the city had over 2.3 million foreign visitors, a 10% increase over the previous year.

Milan is undertaking a major urban redevelopment. FieraMilano, the historical city trade fair operator, held a fairground known as “FieraMilanoCity,” which was demolished to make way for the CityLife zone, a significant urban development. The new trade show complex, which opened in April 2005 in the northwestern district of Rho, makes FieraMilano one of the world’s biggest expo sites. Many additional building projects, in addition to CityLife, are underway to rebuild decommissioned industrial zones. Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, Arata Isozaki, Zaha Hadid, Massimiliano Fuksas, and Daniel Libeskind are among the architects involved in the projects.

Open Wifi Milano allows you to access the web for free in various places of the city, including the city center and the suburbs. To utilize this connection, you must first register and then login.