The most cosmopolitan corner of central Milan, built around one of the old city gates and the great public park behind it. Porta Venezia is where Milan's Liberty (Art Nouveau) architecture flowered in the early 1900s, where the city's Eritrean and Ethiopian communities settled, and where, more recently, a lively LGBTQ scene has made the area one of the most diverse and energetic in the city.
The neighbourhood opens onto the Giardini Pubblici Indro Montanelli, Milan's oldest public park, which holds the Natural History Museum and a small planetarium. Corso Buenos Aires, running northeast from the gate, is one of Europe's longest shopping streets. The side streets — Via Malpighi, Via Melzi d'Eril — hide some of the finest Liberty facades in Italy, with their floral ironwork and ceramic tiles. Around Via Lecco and Via Panfilo Castaldi, Eritrean restaurants and bars give the area a distinct flavour found nowhere else in Milan.
It is a neighbourhood to wander rather than tick off: architecture-spotting by day, an aperitivo or an injera dinner by night. The historic Bar Basso, birthplace of the Negroni Sbagliato, sits just to the east.