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.

San Fedele

The single nave construction of this 1559 Jesuit temple would become a blueprint for Lombard churches built in the Counter-Reformation. The Mannerist interior preserves some fine paintings, including Il Cerano’s Vision of St Ignatius , Bernardino Campi’s Four Saints and Transfiguration , and San Peterzano’s Pietà . The sacristy is lined by 17th-century cabinets by the Jesuit Daniele Ferrari, who also carved the pulpit.
San Gottardo in Corte

Founded in 1336 as a chapel for the town hall.
San Lorenzo Maggiore

A free-standing row of 16 Corinthian columns – once part of a 2nd-century temple – sets San Lorenzo’s frontal piazza off from the road. The vast interior of the church is magnificent and sombre. It was built on a circular plan, with a ring-shaped ambulatory and matroneum, or raised women’s gallery, which often marked such early churches. The Chapel of S. Aquilino, to your right as you enter the building, preserves 4th-century mosaics, a 3rd-century sarcophagus and a Roman-era portal.
San Lorenzo Maggiore, Milan

Dating from the 4th century, this church is still pretty much Roman in its rotund design, although it was rebuilt several times in the Middle Ages. Inside the church are some of the oldest and best-preserved examples of post-Roman art in Northern Italy: 1,600-year-old Paleochristian mosaics.
San Lorenzo, Bergamo

The classiest hotel in Bergamo opened in 1998 in a converted convent at the north end of the atmospheric upper town. The service is impeccable, and the rooms done in a pleasing minimalist style.
San Lorenzo, Mantova

This lovely hotel is furnished with luxurious appointments and 18th and 19th-century panache. It occupies a set of town-houses amid the pedestrianized historic district and has a roof terrace offering a panorama of Mantova.
San Marco

Of the original church, finished in 1254 and dedicated to Venice’s patron St Mark as a tip of the hat for Venice’s help in defeating Barbarossa, all that remains is the main stone doorway, three saints in façade niches and the top of the right bell tower. The rest was overhauled in the 19th century, with care to retain some 16th-century frescoes. In the right tran-sept, there are earlier frescoes, dating to the 13th century, which were rediscovered only in the 1950s.
San Martino della Battaglia

A tart white made from Tocai grapes of Friuli; there’s also a dessert liqueur version.
San Nazaro Maggiore

St Ambrose’s fourth great basilica was overhauled in the 16th century, when Bramantino added the Cappella Trivulzio as a grand entrance. Lanino’s Martyrdom of St Catherine of Alexandria is among other highlights.
San Sempliciano

One of four great basilicas built by St Ambrose in the 4th century (and finished by its namesake in 401) is popularly dedicated to the Anaunia Martyrs (see Northern Milan). The external walls are mostly original; the interior was renovated in the 11th and 12th centuries, and frescoed with a rainbow of angels and a Coronation of the Virgin by Bergog-none in 1515. There are also patches of a late 14th-century fresco in a chapel off the choir.

Jump to top

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