Milan, Italy

Day 1

• Milan Cathedral (Duomo)

  Entering the cathedral to pray is free, but the visitor route is ticketed and there are many tickets: Duomo and Museum €10 (€8 on Wednesdays, when the museum is closed), rooftops €18 by lift and €16 on foot, archaeological area €5, crypt of San Carlo €3.50, Culture Pass €15 valid two days. The lift only reaches the first level: for the second, and for coming down, you take the stairs anyway, and whoever walks up counts 251 steps. The rooftops close at 7pm and the last ticket is sold at 5.50pm.

• Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

  Walking through costs nothing and it is open day and night: it was built between 1865 and 1867 to a design by Giuseppe Mengoni, who died falling from the scaffolding days before the opening. At the centre of the octagon, on the mosaic bull, Milanese spin a heel for luck: the hole in the floor is visible. Above the dome, on the fifth and sixth floors, is Fondazione Prada's Osservatorio: a ticketed exhibition space right against the glass, which almost nobody knows is there.

• Sforza Castle

  The courtyards are crossed free every day from 7am to 7.30pm and are the pedestrian shortcut between the centre and Parco Sempione: plenty of Milanese walk through without entering anything. The museums cost €5, €3 reduced, open Tuesday to Sunday 10am-5.30pm with last entry at 4.30pm, closed Mondays, free on the first Sunday of the month. That ticket takes in the Pietà Rondanini, Michelangelo's last unfinished sculpture, and the Sala delle Asse painted by Leonardo.

Day 2

• The Last Supper (Cenacolo Vinciano)

  Exactly fifteen minutes, forty people per slot, booking compulsory for every ticket type: there is no way in by turning up. Tickets are released in quarterly blocks and the best slots vanish within hours, so the release date matters more than the visit date. Open Tuesday to Sunday 8.15am-7pm, last entry 6.45pm, closed Mondays. The cap is not a whim: it keeps the refectory's air stable, which is why you pass through two antechambers before reaching the wall.

• Pinacoteca di Brera

  There is one ticket and it is called La Grande Brera: it covers the Pinacoteca and Palazzo Citterio, and for Palazzo Citterio it stays valid the same day plus the following six. Booking is compulsory for everyone, including people at the desk. Open Tuesday to Sunday 8.30am-7.15pm with last entry at 6pm, closed Mondays. Entry is free on the first Sunday of the month with a booking, but that day the ticket covers only the Pinacoteca, not Palazzo Citterio.

• Navigli (Naviglio Grande and Darsena)

  The Darsena at the end of the Naviglio Grande was Milan's commercial port until the 1970s, which is why the canals reach this far in. The date worth the trip is the antiques market: the last Sunday of the month, 8.30am to 6.30pm, four hundred stalls along almost two kilometres of towpath from viale Gorizia to the via Valenza bridge, free to enter. The rest of the time this is the aperitivo strip, which from 6pm becomes very crowded and very un-Milanese.

Day 1

• Monumental Cemetery✦ hidden gem

  Free entry, no booking, Tuesday to Sunday 8am-6pm with last entry at 5.30pm; closed on non-holiday Mondays. The city also runs free guided visits, by booking. Just inside is the Famedio, the temple where illustrious Milanese are commemorated and where Manzoni is actually buried; under the left arcade an infopoint hands out the map, which you need, because the ground is the size of a neighbourhood and the monumental tombs are not signposted.

• Leonardo's Vineyard and Casa degli Atellani✦ hidden gem

  You get in only in limited groups, on a half-hour route, and at the weekend booking is compulsory. It is at corso Magenta 65, two minutes from the Last Supper: the natural pairing for anyone who already has that ticket. The vineyard Ludovico il Moro gave Leonardo in 1498 was destroyed by the 1943 bombings; what you see today was replanted after the University of Milan identified the original grape, Malvasia di Candia aromatica, from roots still in the ground.

• Isola district✦ hidden gem

  A former working-class district cut off by the railway, hence the name, now wedged between the Vertical Forest and piazza Gae Aulenti. The part that matters is not the skyscrapers but the streets behind, via Pastrengo and via Borsieri, where the old balcony-access blocks and long-standing shops sit next to the new places. Metro line 5 at Isola or line 2 at Garibaldi. In the evening it is packed and expensive; in the afternoon it is still a neighbourhood where people do their shopping.

Day 2

• Cinque Vie✦ hidden gem

  The oldest point of the city, where five medieval streets converge two hundred metres from the Duomo, and where there is almost nobody. The problem is the hours: these are restoration workshops, design galleries and archives keeping studio hours and closing on Saturday afternoons, so anyone passing at the weekend sees only façades. In April, during design week, the quarter becomes one of the main Fuorisalone venues and is unrecognisable.

• Porta Genova / Naviglio Grande market✦ hidden gem

  On the last Sunday of the month, from 8.30am to 6.30pm and free to enter, four hundred stallholders take over almost two kilometres of the Naviglio Grande towpath, from viale Gorizia to the via Valenza bridge. Furniture, clocks, silver, prints, books, toys and mid-century pieces, and on those days the shops and artists' studios along the canal stay open too. The calendar shifts around Easter and in August: check the date before building a weekend around it.

Day 1

• Saffron risotto (risotto alla milanese)

  Saffron is there for the scent, not the colour, and goes in at the end of cooking; the finishing is done off the heat, with cold butter and grana. The rice is carnaroli and the dish arrives 'all'onda'. It spreads when you tilt the plate: if it sits still in a dome it is overcooked. In the old trattorias you order it alone or 'con l'ossobuco', which turns it into a single course, and some will only make it for two people minimum.

• Cotoletta alla milanese

  A bone-in veal chop, breaded and fried in butter: a finger thick, not wide and thin. The flattened 'elephant's ear' version is later and cheaper, made from boneless topside: serious menus write the difference, others do not, which is what explains the same dish costing twice as much in one place and half in another. Lemon is what tourists add, though no Milanese is genuinely offended.

• Panzerotti and the Milanese aperitivo

  The aperitivo was born here with the vermouths of the late 19th century and is taken standing at the bar between 6pm and 9pm: the price of the drink includes the buffet or a plate of snacks, and in many places you help yourself more than once for a single payment. In the centre a cocktail with the buffet runs ten to fifteen euros, well outside the ring road considerably less. The fried panzerotto, a pastry half-moon with tomato and mozzarella, is the street version of the same ritual: bought over the counter for a few euros.

Day 2

• Mondeghili✦ hidden gem

  Meatballs made from leftover boiled beef, breadcrumb soaked in milk, grana and lemon zest, fried in butter: they come from using things up, not from fresh mince, and you can taste the difference. The name reaches Milan from Arabic by way of the Spanish albóndiga, a leftover of the occupation. You find them in traditional trattorias and on neighbourhood aperitivo counters, almost never in city-centre restaurants.

• Porta Genova / Naviglio Grande market✦ hidden gem

  On the last Sunday of the month, from 8.30am to 6.30pm and free to enter, four hundred stallholders take over almost two kilometres of the Naviglio Grande towpath, from viale Gorizia to the via Valenza bridge. Furniture, clocks, silver, prints, books, toys and mid-century pieces, and on those days the shops and artists' studios along the canal stay open too. The calendar shifts around Easter and in August: check the date before building a weekend around it.

• Navigli (Naviglio Grande and Darsena)

  The Darsena at the end of the Naviglio Grande was Milan's commercial port until the 1970s, which is why the canals reach this far in. The date worth the trip is the antiques market: the last Sunday of the month, 8.30am to 6.30pm, four hundred stalls along almost two kilometres of towpath from viale Gorizia to the via Valenza bridge, free to enter. The rest of the time this is the aperitivo strip, which from 6pm becomes very crowded and very un-Milanese.