It is a safe bet that most people, to the extent that they have heard about the Northern Italian town of Monza at all, have done so in one particular context. What are the Tragic Deaths That Have Made Monza Famous This is what has made Monza famous: the Autodromo, the fastest and deadliest track…
Rivers are the beasts of our natural landscapes: they can be fierce and raging, but even when they flow gently, when they are settled and calm, they always command our respect. Canals, by contrast, are their mild-mannered domesticated cousins: hard-working, dependable, and content with a life of quiet drudgery. Among these farm animals of our…
Milan, in many ways, is the odd one out among major Italian cities. It has no Centro Storico, that characteristic warren of buildings from different periods. But there is one particular element that is missing from the cityscape: Milan has no major natural body of water, neither a mighty river (such as Rome, Florence, Turin)…
If you are in a rush, you could reduce those two hours in Milan to 15 minutes …. and still see Italy’s largest Cathedral, the world’s oldest shopping mall and opera’s most famous theatre, all of them “next-arcade neighbours” in one of the smallest central cores of any major city in Europe In the last…
… at Milan’s Cimitero Monumentale But there are cracks in the bombast, and you can feel how a very modern sense of discomfort is creeping in. For centuries, death operated a strict two-tier system: cathedral tombs it was for crowned heads and high clergy, the local churchyard for everybody else. (Unless you were a certified…
