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Ernest Hemingway’s World War I novel (written in 1929) tells the story of an American soldier wounded while fighting for the Italian army. He convalesces in a Milan hospital, and, after inadvertently deserting while escaping the Germans, reunites with his love in Stresa on Lake Maggiore. They stay at the Des Iles Borromées hotel (where Hemingway himself often stayed) before fleeing by boat across to Swiss Locarno.

It’s 1937, and a group of stodgy society Brits and bored Yanks loosen their mores and inhibitions on the shores of Lake Como. Vanessa Redgrave and Uma Thurman head up the cast of this 1995 film by John Irvin. You can visit its setting, the Villa Balbianello, Lake Como.

H V Morton, who in his youth gained fame scooping the story of Tutankhamun’s tomb discovery in the 1920s, became one of the 20th-century’s best, if little-known, travel writers. His 1950s journey through Italy is an erudite combination of travelogue, history and wonderful prose, all of it surprisingly undated.

After a long absence from La Scala, Verdi offered this Egyptian melodrama.

The “Giuseppe Verdi” Sym-phony Orchestra of Milan has since 1999 played in this reinvented 1930s’ cinema, which stood derelict for decades after World War II. Riccardo Chailly conducts concerts from late September to May.

This is high-tech nightclubbing, with TV screens, internet feeds, concerts broadcast live and a magnetic card that keeps track of your tab (you pay when you leave). The music ranges from modern pop and hip-hop to 1960s and 70s revival – the owners are a group of Serie A footballers who are often seen here when not on the field.

The first of many fun-loving Donizetti premieres.

This stalwart from the mid-1980s still offers you the best chance in all of Milan to spot a genuine international supermodel. Though a perfectly standard discotheque from 1986, glitzy Hollywood continues to draw the most beautiful people in town, so dress to impress.

Written in the 1800s, Alessandro Manzoni’s novel is a window into Lombard life in the 1600s, set in Milan and Manzoni’s Lake Como hometown of Lecco during Spanish rule. It is required reading for all Italian schoolchildren and has been translated into many languages.

Film director Michelangelo Antonioni takes the slow death of affection between a couple, masterfully played by Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau, and sets it against a backdrop of rapidly industralizing Milan in 1960.