Things to do in Milan

Two days for the essentials — the Duomo and its rooftop walkway, the Last Supper (book at least a month ahead), the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and the Brera quarter. Add a third for the Navigli canals, the Cimitero Monumentale and a Lake Como day trip from Cadorna station.

Leonardo's Last Supper at Santa Maria delle Grazie. Slots sell out months in advance; you get 15 minutes in the refectory in a group of 30. Pair it with the Pinacoteca di Brera the same afternoon — Mantegna's Dead Christ and Piero della Francesca's Brera Madonna in the same room.

Brera for aperitivo on Via Fiori Chiari, Isola (north of Porta Garibaldi) for craft cocktails and the Bosco Verticale skyline, and Navigli on the canal banks for cheap aperitivo and live music. Porta Venezia has Eritrean restaurants and the city's best gay nightlife.

Risotto alla milanese — saffron-yellow, finished with bone marrow — at Trattoria del Nuovo Macello. Cotoletta alla milanese (breaded veal cutlet, fried in butter, bone in) at Al Garghet. Negroni Sbagliato — invented at Bar Basso — replaces gin with prosecco.

Easiest big city in Italy. Four metro lines, trams (still the orange 1928 originals on some routes), and a flat city layout. The single integrated ATM ticket works on everything. Walk the centre between the Duomo and Brera; tram 1 is a sightseeing ride on its own.

The Cimitero Monumentale north of Porta Garibaldi — an open-air sculpture museum where Milan's 19th-century industrial families competed in commissioning art for their tombs. Symbolist sculptures, Liberty mausoleums and the actual tomb of Alessandro Manzoni (Italy's national novelist). Free entry, almost no tourists.