 DISCOVER MILAN
Milan (Italian: Milano) is one of the largest cities in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy, and is one of the most highly developed urban centres in Europe. The municipal border covers a relatively small area (about one-eighth of that of Rome) because of the historical development of high density centres in agriculturally rich Lombardy.
Milan is renowned as one of the world capitals of design and fashion. The English word milliner is derived from the name of the city. The Lombard metropolis is famous for its fashion houses and shops (such as along via Montenapoleone) and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in the Piazza Duomo (reputed to be the world's oldest shopping mall).
The city hosted the World Exposition in 1906 and has submitted a bid to BIE to host the Universal Expo in 2015. Inhabitants of Milan are referred to as Milanese.
 CLIMATE OF MILAN
In contrast to most of Italy, which is famous for a comfortable Mediterranean climate, Milan's winters are typically damp and cold, while summers are hot and very humid. Average temperatures are -3/+6oC in January and +15/+28oC in July. Snowfalls were once common, sometimes with up to 40 cm (15 in) per year, less and less so in the last two decades. Humidity is quite high during the whole year and annual precipitation averages about 1000 mm (40 in). In the stereotypical image, the city is often shrouded in the fog characteristic of the Po Basin, although the removal of rice fields from the southern neighbourhoods, urban heating effect and the reduction of pollution levels have reduced this phenomenon in recent years.
LANDMARKS OF MILAN
Milan is one of the major artistic centres of northern Italy. Its chief landmarks include:
- The Duomo, the second largest church in Italy and world's third, and the world's largest collection of marble statues with the widely visible golden Madonna statue on top of the spire, la Madunina (little Madonna), the symbol of Milan.
- Teatro alla Scala. Milan is also one of the most important centres in the world for Opera lirica, with his famous Teatro alla Scala (La Scala).
- The Castello Sforzesco
- The Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio
- The Palaeo-Christian Basilica of San Lorenzo
- The Biblioteca Ambrosiana, containing drawings and notebooks by Leonardo da Vinci among its vast holdings of books, manuscripts, and drawings, and is one of the main repositories of European culture. The city is also the home of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.
- The church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a museum next to it houses one of the most famous paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper (L'ultima cena or Il cenacolo)
- The church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro, with a famous trompe l'oeil traditionally ascribed to Bramante
- The Pinacoteca di Brera, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Poldi Pezzoli, the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum and the Musei del Castello galleries, which host a great number of pictorial masterpieces
- The Cimitero Monumentale di Milano.
ECONOMY OF MILAN
Milan is one of the major financial and business centres of the world. The city is the seat of the Italian Stock Exchange (the Borsa Italiana). Piazza Affari and its hinterland is an avant-garde industrial area.
Milan is also well known as the seat of the Alfa Romeo motorcar company, for its silk production, and as one of the world's capitals for fashion and a world leader for design.
FieraMilano, the city's Exhibition Centre and Trade Fair complex, is notable. The original fairground, known as "FieraMilanoCity", is slated for redevelopment. The new fairground, in the north-western suburb of Rho, opened in April 2005, making the Fiera Milano the largest trade fair complex in the world.
MILAN OF THE FUTURE
At present, Milan is experiencing a significant architectural and urban design renaissance. Many new construction projects are under way with the aim of rehabilitating disused, peripheral industrial areas, including entire quarters. Examples of these projects include: the addition to the Teatro alla Scala; the CityLife project in the old "fiera" site; the European Library; the new quarter Santa Giulia; and the Porta Nuova project in the Garibaldi-Republica zone.
Famous architects are involved in the construction of this "new" Milan, such as Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Massimiliano Fuksas and Daniel Libeskind. These major works will give Milan a new skyline no longer dominated by the Duomo and the Pirelli Tower.
This urban rebirth is further fostered by the bid to host Expo 2015.
FOOD OF MILAN
Like most cities in Italy, Milan and its surrounding area has its own regional cuisine. Milanese cuisine includes "cotoletta alla milanese", a fried veal (pork and turkey are used, though) fillet in bread crumbs (which some say is of Austrian origin, calling it "Wienerschnitzel"). Other typical dishes are cassoeula (stewed pork rib chops and sausage with Savoy cabbage and tomato sauce), ossobuco (stewed marrow-bone with tomato or lemon sauce), risotto alla milanese (with saffron, white wine and beef marrow), busecca (stewed tripe with beans and tomato sauce), and brasato (stewed beef or pork with wine and potatoes).
Season-related pastries include chiacchiere (fried flat cookies) and tortelli (fried spherical cookies) for Carnival, colomba (glazed cake shaped as a dove) for Easter, pane dei morti ("Bread of the Dead", cookies aromatized with cinnamon) for All Soul's Day and panettone for Christmas. The salame milanese, a salami with a very thin grain, is widespread throughout Italy. The best known Milanese cheese is gorgonzola.
Retrieved from Wikipedia.org, the Free Encyclopedia
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