Milan Hotels - Best prices, best places

The dynamo behind the country's "economic miracle", MILAN is a city like no other in Italy. It's foggy in winter, muggy in summer, and is closer in outlook, as well as distance, to London than to Palermo. This is no city of peeling palazzi, cobbled piazzas and la dolce vita , but one in which time is money, the pace fast, and where consumerism and the work-ethic rule the lives of its power-dressed citizens.

It's a historic city, with enough churches and museums to keep you busy for a week - the Accademia Brera, duomo and the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie - but there are also parks and cafés to relax in, and the contemporary aspects of the place represent the leading edge of Italy's fashion and design industry.

Historic Milan lies at the centre of a web of streets, within the inner Cerchia dei Navigli , which follows the route of the medieval city walls. Piazza del Duomo is the city centre's main orientation point: most of the city's major sights lie within this area, as well as the swankiest designer shops and most elegant cafés. Visits to art galleries and museums , the Duomo and other churches can be punctuated with designer window-shopping in the so-called Quadrilatero d'Oro, or sipping overpriced drinks among the designer-dressed clientele of the pavement cafés of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele or around the Pinacoteca di Brera art gallery. The second cerchia , the Viali , skirts behind the centre's two large parks - the Parco Sempione and Giardini Pubblici - to the canal sides of the Navigli in the south, following the tracks of defensive walls built during the Spanish occupation. Within lie the Castello Sforzesco and the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie , which houses Milan's most famous painting, Leonardo's The Last Supper . What follows is a wedge-by-wedge account of the city: Milan is not an easily wanderable city, so make a judicious selection, walking a little but where necessary hopping between places by way of the metro or other public transport.

Most international and domestic trains pull in at the main Stazione Centrale , northeast of the city centre on Piazza Duca d'Aosta, at the hub of the metro network on lines MM2 and MM3. Quite a few trains, especially those from stations in the Milan region - Bergamo, Pavia, Como and the other western lakes - terminate at Garibaldi, Lambrate, Porta Genova and Nord , all on MM2 (the metro stop for Milan Nord is "Cadorna"), although these often also stop at Centrale. International and long-distance buses arrive at and depart from Piazza Castello, in front of the Castello Sforzesco. Information and tickets are available from the Autostradale bus office (tel 02.801.161) on the piazza, or Zani Viaggi (tel 02.867.131), on the corner of Piazza Castello and Foro Buonaparte. As for arrival by car , the city is encircled by a multi-laned toll road, the Tangenzianale, from which there are links onto the autostradas for Venice and Turin (A4), Genoa (A7), and the "Autostrada del Sole" (A1) for Bologna, Florence, Rome and the south.

Milan has two airports , both used by domestic and international traffic. Malpensa (tel 02.7485.2200), 50km northeast of the city, is the main one, connected by direct bus with the Stazione Centrale (every 20 mins 5.20am-10.30pm; 1hr; L13,000/?6.71) and by the new FNME train, the Malpensa Express (every 30min 6.30am-1.30am; 40min; information tel 02.27.723, www.malpensaexpress.com ), with Milano Nord (the early morning and late evening services are replaced by a bus from Via Leopardi, just to the left of the station). It costs L15,000/?7.75, although Air Italia and Lufthansa passangers are entitled to discounts. Check when you buy your ticket that your airline hasn't arranged a similar deal. Milan's other airport, Linate (tel 02.7485.2200), is just 7km from the city centre: special airport buses connect it with the air terminal on Piazza Luigi di Savoia, on the east side of Stazione Centrale (every 20min 5.40am-7pm, every 30min 7-9pm; 20min; L4500/?2.32). Ordinary ATM urban transport buses (#73) also run every ten minutes from 5.30am until around midnight between Linate and Piazza San Babila in the city centre, and they don't take much longer; tickets cost L1500/?0.78 and should be bought before you get on the bus from the airport newsagent, or, if you have change, from the ticket machine at the bus stop. Bear in mind, too, that there's a twice-daily connecting bus service between Linate and Malpensa, a 75-minute journey.

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