On Route 36, 15 km north of Milan. Few head for Monza except to see motor-racing at the Autodrome in the leafy surroundings of Villa Reale. The town is now virtually a suburb of Milan, but of equal antiquity. Its barbarian palaces have long vanished but its enormous church, on a 6thC foundation, remains. Here the iron crown of Lombardy, said to contain a nail from the Crucifixion, was placed on the heads of Holy Roman Emperors-elect, starting with Charlemagne. And here it is still kept in a side-chapel in the duomo. This cathedral, mostly 14thC, has serpentine columns, many florid relics and the painted tomb of Queen Theodolinda of the Lombards, patroness of Monza, along with the silver hens and chickens and other bizarre gifts with which she endowed the church in AD 590.