Milan's grand green axis, running from the brick towers of the Castello Sforzesco out through the city's largest central park to the triumphal Arco della Pace. This was the ducal and then the Napoleonic showpiece of Milan — fortress, parade ground, and pleasure garden laid end to end — and it remains the place Milanese come to walk, run, and escape the traffic.
The Castello Sforzesco anchors the eastern end: a 15th-century fortress of the Sforza dukes that now holds a cluster of civic museums, including Michelangelo's unfinished final sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà. Behind it spreads the Parco Sempione, an English-style park dotted with the Triennale design museum, an aquarium, and the Torre Branca, a slender steel viewing tower. The park ends at the Arco della Pace. To the south, just outside the park, the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie holds Leonardo's Last Supper.
Come for a long walk that strings together a castle, a park, a design museum, and one of the most famous paintings in the world. The Last Supper requires booking well ahead; everything else is open-air and free.