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Built in 1600, the hotel has a mountain chalet look to it. The receptionists can be brusque, but the rooms are cosy, if unimaginatively furnished. Book a room at the front, where small, flower-filled balconies give views over the bustling main drag below.

This converted apartment between the Duomo and Castello is a wonderful home-away-from-home. The quiet rooms have floral draperies, matching headboards and the occasional exposed beam. The more expensive terrazzo rooms have small terraces and canopy beds.

Milan’s most eccentric hotel is beloved by fashion gurus and film stars. What it lacks in amenities such as minibars and large bathrooms, it makes up for with its flower-fringed balconies, homey mismatched furnishings and breakfast-in-bed.

Luxurious amenities and refined service without a high price tag. Rooms either overlook the private garden or open on to the Liberty-style façades of this residential street, and all come with lovely wood furnishings, high-speed internet connections, and VCR. Free bikes are provided for guests.

Just outside the historic centre of Limone, on its own private beach, this camping site offers wind-surfing and sailing, and two pools. The grounds include a fish restaurant, wood-oven pizzeria, beach grill, and supermarket.

This long road is where your average Milanese heads to shop, offering more than 350 shops in no particular order. You’ll find everything from handmade men’s dress shirts and Richard Ginori china to bootleg records.

This thoroughly modernized pedestrian street at the back of the Duomo is lined with arcades and some of the hippest shops in central Milan. Techno beats throb from windows displaying international cutting-edge chic for young fashionistas.

After serving as fashion editor for the Italian Vogue, Carla Sozzani opened this boutique of expensive, eminently fashionable labels on everything from clothes and accessories to books and kitchenware. There’s also a café (see Corso Como 10, Milan).

Bargain-basement prices on brand-name clothing (Missoni, Ferrè, Yves St Laurent). Major label dresses under €150, suits under €200.

Pricey and out in the suburbs, yet Aimo and Nadia (a Tuscan-born husband-and-wife team) run this place with exquisite taste throughout, and it ranks among Milan’s very, very best (see Aimo e Nadia, Milan).

Set at the foot of its namesake iron bridge over a canal, this Navigli standby boasts on its menu: “Good cooking is a friend of the good life and an enemy of a hurried one”. You can ponder this over a long, satisfying meal.

Its theme is simple: include Italian cheeses in as many dishes as possible, culminating in a stupendous cheese platter.

For such a beloved resort, Bellagio oddly lacks superlative eateries, save perhaps this “little boat”. The recipes are local and well-prepared, the ambience amicable and the prices appropriate.

A Sicilian couple has run this crowded joint for over 30 years, but they stick to a Neapolitan recipe for their wood-oven pizzas.

Italian chain of fast-yet-excellent food. You carry a tray around to various food-prep islands, where the dishes are cooked to order.

Gianfranco and Ornella Dallai run this debonair restaurant, with recipes based around fresh lake fish and foul. Banquet-like “tasting menus” and fabulous desserts.

Nestling in the heart of Milan’s boutique district since 1817, Cova offers excellent coffee and pastries (see Cova, Milan).

One of half a dozen bars and gelaterie (ice-cream parlours) lining a pedestrianized stretch just north of the Pinacoteca. It was one of Milan’s first bohemian bars, given its name by a local journalist who thought it resembled the bar in Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn .

A lovely corner café that’s a cross between an Irish pub and a Parisian Art Deco café, with a zinc bar, high ceilings, free newspapers and a decent list of dishes along with coffee, beer, cocktails and apéritifs.

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.

Fashion models and designers still hold on to the Hollywood as their own club.

Snacks and sushi, coffee and cocktails in a nook off the main shopping area.

The greatest free museum in Italy! There’s a bit of everything: paintings by the likes of Bellini and Mantegna, a stupendous cycle of 16th-century tapestries, archaeological collections and, its greatest piece, Michelangelo’s achingly unfinished Rondanini Pietà .

Among the top pieces in this small archaeological collection, which traces Lombard and neighbouring civilizations from prehistory to the end of the Roman era, is the Trivulzio Cup. This precious 4th-century glass cup has a delicate glass netting hovering just above the chalice surface on thin stilts of glass, along with a raised inscription that reads “Drink to Enjoy Long Life”.

Milan’s gallery of modern art is among the best in Italy. The works concentrate on Italian artists of the 20th century, including De Chirico, Modigliani and Boccioni. The collection is housed in the Palazzo Reale. The museum underwent restoration in 2004. Call ahead to confirm opening hours.

We can thank Napoleon’s penchant for looting the art of his conquered territories for the existence of the Carrara, named after the count who, in 1795, stewarded the emperor’s collection. Pillaged from across Northern Italy, in its ranks are works by Botticelli, Raphael, Bellini, Mantegna, Canaletto, Carpaccio, Guardi and Tiepolo. Above all, though, come to admire the emotion-filled Renaissance paintings of Lorenzo Lotto, a Venetian painter who settled in Bergamo in 1513.

This sprawling modern town was once a stronghold of the Borromeo family, but its fortress was razed by Napoleon. The only lasting monument to the great family is a disconcertingly enormous 17th-century bronze statue of San Carlo Borromeo. Clamber up a ladder-like stair to the head of the 23-m (75-ft) colossus to peek out through his pupils at the 17th-century church below. The road leading to this shrine was meant to be lined with 15 devotional chapels, but only two were finished.

A popular town, containing the gardens of villas Serbelloni and Melzi, a Romanesque church, a café-lined harbour front and a pretty warren of medieval alleys (see Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Villa Melzi, Bellagio).

This year-round skiing village high in the Valtellina is equal parts high-class resort and medieval village. It’s also a gateway to a park of glaciers, peaks, trails and gorgeous Alpine vistas.

The name “Riviera” is apt, for this sheltered promontory has a truly Mediterranean clime, enabling citrus trees and camellias to flourish, despite its relatively northern locale. The lake vistas, steep medieval streets and 18th-century houses give it a pleasant feel. Most striking are the scraps of islands just offshore, sprouting glowering castles built by lake pirates in the 1400s (see Lake Maggiore) and used by the Borromeo clan as a defensive line against the Swiss.

On tiny Lake Annone in the Brianza triangle between Como and Lecco, Civate is the access point to San Pietro al Monte, a wonderful 11th-century monastic complex.

Italy’s silk capital was founded by the Romans and has a spectacular cathedral (see Duomo, Como), a handful of modest museums, lots of boutiques and two ancient churches.