Mediolanum to the Romans, Mailand to the Germans: ‘May Land’. They felt a burst of spring when they came out of the northern winter. It is a phoenix of a city, sacked by Goths in AD 539 and risen again; destroyed by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1162 and risen again; lost and won by the Visconti and other regional despots; ruined by the French, rebuilt by the Spanish, pillaged by the Austrians and rescued in 1859 by the makers of modern Italy. Milan then rose to be the nation’s banking, commercial and cultural capital, disdainful of Rome.

Start south of Piazza del Duomo in the Ticino quarter, the oldest part of the city, where they speak the true Milanese dialect. Here the Naviglio Grande (‘Grand Canal’) streams in from Lake Maggiore, executes a sharp turn at the dock and flows on again, as the Naviglio Pavese, to join the River Ticino at Pavia. Bars and trattorie sit over its meandering offshoots (one of which went underground to Piazza del Duomo with stone to build Milan cathedral). Many such canals network the Piedmont and Lombardy plains, connecting lakes and rivers, unobstructed by locks, bringing currents of fresh green water into dusty towns. Barge traffic dwindles – one day these canals may be waterways for leisure craft.

In the same Ticino quarter, near Porta Ticinese, 16 white columns stand in mid-street. They are relics of 3rdC baths, or maybe a marble Roman palace. Milan’s oldest churches are here, sunk in small piazzas. At Sant’ Eustorgio, about AD 330, the first Christian emperor, Constantine, deposited the supposed bones of the Three Magi, but they were afterwards sent to Cologne, where they remain. There are wonderful little shrines and chapels in this church, the work of Balduccio and Michelozzo.

San Lorenzo’s church is the jewel of Milan, unmistakably Roman, with carvings and mosaics both pagan and Christian and the heavy tomb of Ataulphus the Goth, who married the Byzantine princess Galla Placidia

Next is Sant’ Ambrogio, basilica of St Ambrose (born AD 340), bright light of the Dark Ages, spiritual father of Milan and one of the four Doctors of the Roman Catholic Church. We recommend these dim little ecclesiastical gems even to tourists who do not normally collect churches.

Two blocks from Sant’ Ambrogio is Santa Maria delle Grazie, on whose refectory wall Leonardo da Vinci painted the world’s second most famous picture: The Last Supper. (Italians know it as ll Cenacolo, and that is the sign you should follow.) Try to see it early in the day, before the crowds arrive and when the first pale sunlight filters in.

That leaves the obligatory duomo with its 135 Gothic spires and 2,245 exterior statues, which took 500 years to build. An elevator takes you to the roof, where you feel you are walking among stalactites or among the angels.

Conveniently gathered in the web of streets above Piazza del Duomo are the Brera, a top art gallery famed for its Tuscan and Venetian masters (http://pinacotecabrera.org/en/); the four-square Castello Sforzesco, with gardens, lakes and museum of antiquities; the public gardens with modern art gallery and Zoo; and the Scala theatre, now rebuilt with a museum of the theatre attached.

Before you leave the Piazza del Duomo, walk through the Galleria, a spacious arcade of cafés and merchandise which is Milan’s talking-shop, and the smaller galleria of boutiques which runs underground across the piazza.