45.5°N

MMilan is a city of rings. The Duomo stands at the centre; around it ran the old canals of the Navigli, filled in during the 1930s, and further out the Spanish walls. Only to the south-west do the canals still run in the open, from the Darsena basin.

The cathedral was begun in 1386; its facade was finished under Napoleon. Beside it, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II opened in 1867 under a dome of iron and glass.

Torre Velasca rose in 1958, its upper floors wider than the shaft below. The orange trams called Ventotto have run since 1928.