DK Travel : Milan and the Lakes

Milan is Italy’s economic powerhouse, a bustling city of finance and industry, media empires and fashion houses, backed up by an impressive cultural heritage of important art galleries and ancient churches. Yet a 40-minute train ride takes you to the azure pools of “the lakes”, lined with fishing villages, villas and laid-back resorts.

Cannobio

By the Swiss border at the base of a rushing mountain stream near the pretty Orrido di Santa Anna gorge, Cannobio dates back more than 3,000 years, though its steep, crooked pebble lanes and old plastered buildings are mainly medieval. The harbour is filled with restaurant tables in summertime.
Capitol Millennium

The name may no longer mean cutting edge, but this towering modern hotel does boast the latest in business technologies. Rooms include dual phone/modem lines, internet access via your TV, and in the suites (both executive and conference), a private PC, fax, and large screen TV.
Cappella Colleoni, Bergamo

Bartolomeo Colleoni was a condottiere , a redoubtable mercenary general who, as a reward for his services, received Bergamo as his own fiefdom. Never much of a one for understatement, Colleoni demolished a church sacristy to make his own tomb, hiring the sculptor Amadeo to decorate it with a complex allegory of Biblical and Classical reliefs plus a horse-mounted effigy of himself for the sepulchre inside.
Car Racing

The track at Monza, one of Europe’s best, hosts the Italian Grand Prix in September (entry 7 opposite).
Caravaggio (1571–1609/10)

The Baroque master, who influenced an entire generation, used peasant models and a technique of heavy chiaroscuro, playing harsh light off deep black shadows to create dramatic scenes with brilliant realism.
Carlton Hotel Baglioni

This 1962 hotel on the north side of the shopping district sports non-smoking rooms (unusual in Italy), 19th-century– style silk brocades and inlaid furnishings. There is also a business centre.
Carnival

Carnevale in Milan is a combination of religious pomp, fancy-dress parade and Bacchanalian bash. Whereas carnivals elsewhere in the world – everywhere from Rio to Venice – end on Martedì Grasso (“Fat Tuesday”), Archbishop St Ambrose decreed that in Milan the party should go on until the following Saturday. No wonder they made him a saint.
Casa degli Omenoni

Sculptor Leone Leoni’s 16th-century home has a magnificent façade flanked by a Liberty-style tower.
Casa degli Omenoni

Renaissance sculptor Leone Leoni, whose works grace Milan’s Duomo and Madrid’s El Escorial, built this palazzo in 1565, lining the lower level of the façade with eight giant telamones – columns in the form of a male figure.
Casa del Manzoni

Manzoni, Italy’s greatest 19th-century writer (see I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)), lived in this Neo-Classical palazzo , now a museum of “Manzoniana”.

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Hotel price categories

For a standard, double room per night (with breakfast if included), taxes and extra charges.
- under €110
- €110-€160
- €160-€210
- €210-€270
- over €270