Milan Central Station (in Italian, Stazione Centrale di Milano or Milano Centrale) is one of the main European train stations . It is a railroad terminus officially inaugurated in 1931 to replace the old (1864) central station, which was a transit station and couldn't stand the new traffic caused by the opening of the Sempione tunnel (1906).
King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy laid the cornerstone of the new station on April 28, 1906, before a blueprint for the station had even been chosen. The last, real, contest for its construction was won in 1912 by architect Ulisse Stacchini , whose design was modeled after Union Station in Washington, DC , and the construction of the new station began.
Due to the Italian economic crisis during World War I, construction proceeded very slowly, and the project, rather simple at the beginning, kept changing and became more and more complex and majestic. This happened especially when Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister, and wanted the station to represent the power of the fascist regime.
The major changes were the new platform types and the introduction of the great steel canopies by Alberto Fava; 341 metres long and covering an area of 66,500 square metres.
Construction resumed in earnest in 1925 and on July 1, 1931 the station was officially opened in the presence of Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano.
Its face is 200 metres wide and its vault 72 metres high, a record when it was built. It has 24 platforms. Each day about 320,000 passengers transit by the station, totalling about 120 million per year.
The station has no definite architectual style, but is a blend of many different styles, especially Liberty and Art Deco , but not limited to those.
It has been dubiously characterized as one of the most beautiful stations in the world, together with New York 's Grand Central Terminal. (Wikipedia)

The Duomo
The most outstanding example of Gothic-Lombard architecture, the Duomo dates back to 1300. It was built on the wishes of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. This imposing religious building, second only to St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, houses almost 3500 statues that are spread over an area of almost 12,000 square meters. The tallest spire, which has the famous “Madonnina” on top of it, is 108 meters high. The statue of the Virgin Mary, the “Madonnina”, is covered in 3900 pieces of gold leaf.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele

Milan has a wonderful history as a laboratory of creative ideas. The Polytechnic and the Accedemia di Brera have trained fashion designers and other designers who are famous worldwide.

Here is a small selection of designers born in Milan, or who started their careers here, contributing to the great name of Italian fashion in the world:

Giorgio Armani: born in Piacenza in 1934, the king of Italian fashion started his career in Milan, working as a buyer for Rinascente. At the beginning of the sixties, he left his job to dedicate himself to creating patterns for well-known designers, even though he had no specific training. In 1975 he risked again, starting up the label Giorgio Armani for men and women and he was successful immediately. He built up a close relationship with the cinema world from the start, and was consecrated with his clothes made for "American Gigolo". A young Richard Gere was seen in front of a huge clothes closet, in the dressing ceremony scene, that was arranged in a maniacally perfect order. Foremost symbol of elegance in the 1980s, Armani is still king of world fashion today.

Miuccia Prada: Miuccia Prada, an anti-conformist who was politically active in the 1970s, took over the family company in 1978 that was specialized in bags and leather accessories, and revolutionized everything. Her bags became sought-after pieces and became part of the Milanese landscape. Here unmistakable, minimal-chic style won over the Milanese upper middle classes in the 1980s and 1990s. Her sports range, characterized by the famous “red line” made the label even better known and won over larger shares of the market. However, Prada did not want to be just a reference point for fashion: In 1995, she founded the Fondazione Prada in Milan, an important artistic laboratory and window for contemporary international artists.

Gianfranco Ferré: born in the province of Milan in 1944, Gian Grance Ferré gained a degree in architecture at the Milan Polytechnic. After traveling to India, from where he took his inspiration, he started working in the fashion world, with a rational, structured style that gave him the nickname “architect of fashion”. The tailored cut of his clothes and the lines of his shapes conquered the world.

Dolce & Gabbana: Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, born in the province of Palermo and in Milan respectively, are the most famous couple in the Italian fashion world. Their style evolves continuously, and is much appreciated by "chameleon-like " stars such as Madonna. They made their debut in Milan in 1985, in the boom period of career women, ambitious and squared-off, just like the shoulder pads that were used to pad their suit jackets. Dolce & Gabbana went against the trend however, and rediscovered the fuller Mediterranean femininity: rounded shapes, petticoats that showed off one’s cleavage, loose, wild hairstyles. Sicily will always be a source of inspiration that will win over grey Milan too with its warmth and sensuality.

Versace: this name owes its fortune to the creativity of Gianni Versace, born in Reggio Calabria and who moved to Milan in the 1970s to work in the fashion world, designing patterns for other designers. Thanks to the managerial skills of his brother Santo, the label Versace was set up a few years later, a daring, aggressive label that is characterized by the unusual matching of colors and geometric patterns printed on silk. After Gianni’s death in 1997, the company was taken over by his brother and sister, Santo and Donatella.

Some interesting works inside the cathedral are: the Pope Martin V monument (1424) by Tradate , the Cardinal Mario Caracciolo grave (1538) by Bambaia, the high Altar in the presbytery from the 16th century, the set of chairs from the second half of the 16th century and in the left nave the Trivulzio’s Candelabra.

The interior of this cathedral is as impressive as its exterior. Here you’ll find some interesting monuments. One of the more interesting are the Ariberto Archbishop’s grave (1045), with a golden crucifix from the 11th century; The Ottone and Giovanni Visconti monuments; the Gian Goiacomo Medici grave (1560); the San Bartolome sculpture and Marco Carelli grave (1394) in the right nave.

Storia de la Galleria
Nella prima metà del XIX secolo Milano guardava alle grandi capitali europee come Londra e Parigi come esempio di urbanizzazione. Soprattutto perché la città si stava scoprendo come principale città industriale della penisola e le innovazioni tecnologiche erano il simbolo della seconda rivoluzione industriale e di conseguenza del grande cambiamento sociale che si era messo in moto. La tour Eiffel, il ponte di ferro sul Severn, erano un esempio di come la tecnologia fosse al servizio dell'architettura anche con un discreto senso estetico.
Nel 1859 si fece seria l'idea di un passaggio coperto che collegasse piazza Duomo a piazza della Scala: simile alla Galleria de Cristoforis, sempre a Milano a San Babila, ma più grande e più borghese, da dedicare magari al re che portò Milano ad unificarsi al Regno d'Italia.
La zona prescelta era quella a sinistra del Duomo, edificata con piccole costruzioni non consoni all'immagine che la municipalità voleva dare. Il comune indisse un concorso internazionale al quale parteciparono 176 architetti e che vide vincitore il giovane Giuseppe Mengoni, il quale propose una lunga galleria attraversata da un braccio, con al centro dell'incrocio una grande "sala" ottagonale: la copertura prevedeva un'ossatura in ferro e il resto in vetro.
I due ingressi principali, quelli del braccio più lungo, previdero inoltre due grandi archi trionfali. I capitali necessari si trovarono costituendo una società in Inghilterra promettendo ricavi dalle proprietà in costruzione, la stessa che fabbricò l'ossatura in ferro e la spedì a Parigi per essere assemblata. Quando questa società fallì, il Comune di Milano assunse la proprietà e continuò a fornire il capitale necessario.
Nel 1865 iniziarono i lavori con la posa della prima pietra da parte di re Vittorio Emanuele II di Savoia e due anni più tardi si inaugurò la Galleria, anche se non completamente terminata.
Circa dodici anni dopo finalmente il complesso fu terminato. Giuseppe Mengoni, l'ideatore della Galleria, vi morì proprio precipitando dalla cupola durante un'ispezione il 30 dicembre 1877.

Nelle notti del 13 e del 15 agosto 1943, la Galleria è colpita dai bombardamenti aerei alleati.

Oggi
La Galleria è stata interessata da un restauro negli anni Sessanta del XX secolo che ha portato al rifacimento della pavimentazione. Da qualche anno l'Ottagono è usato dal comune di Milano per illustrare a turisti e cittadini i cambiamenti o le manifestazioni che interessano la città meneghina.

You can see here Leonardo da Vinci’s sculpture, in front of the Teatro della Scala.

The Teatro alla Scala was founded, under the auspices of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, to replace the Royal Ducal Theatre, which was destroyed by fire on 26 February 1776 and had until then been the home of opera in Milan.
The cost of building the new theatre was borne by the owners of the boxes at the Ducal, in exchange for possession of the land on which stood the church of Santa Maria alla Scala (hence the name) and for renewed ownership of their boxes.
Designed by the great neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini, La Scala opened on 3 August 1778 with Antonio Salieri's opera L'Europa riconosciuta, to a libretto by Mattia Verazi.

The early period of the theatre's artistic history is linked to the tradition of "Neapolitan" opera buffa, whose leading exponents were Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816) and Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801). Among the numerous operas performed may be mentioned La frascatana (1780), Il barbiere di Siviglia (1786) and Nina pazza per amore (1804) by Paisiello, L'italiana in Londra (1780) and Il matrimonio segreto (1793) by Cimarosa.

The theatre's repertoire was renewed between 1793 and 1798 with L'oro fa tutto by Ferdinando Paër (1771-1839) and Un pazzo ne fa cento by Giovanni Simone Mayr (1762-1845). Thus La Scala opened towards the neoclassical French taste and to the subsequent, more radical evolution of musical theatre. Paër and Mayr historically represented the junction and passage between opera buffa and the romantic opera of Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868). With the advent of Rossini in 1812 (La pietra del paragone), the Teatro alla Scala was to become the appointed place of Italian opera seria: of its history dating back more than a century and of its subsequent tradition up till the present. The catalogue of Rossini's works performed until 1825 included: Il turco in Italia, La Cenerentola, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La donna del lago, Otello, Tancredi, Semiramide, and Mosé.

During that period the choreographies of Salvatore Viganò (1769-181) and of Carlo Blasis (1795-1878) also widened the theatre's artistic supremacy to include ballet.
As for its foreign repertoire, outstanding were the productions, in 1816, of Die Zauberflöte, one of the operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) given during the nineteenth century, and, in 1822, of La vestale by Gaspare Spontini (1744-1851).

In 1806 Alessandro Sanquirico (1777-1849) was appointed director of stage design. He renewed the theatre's concept of productions by adjusting them to the new romantic tendency. In 1814 the depth of the stage was increased, to occupy part of the site of a demolished convent in what is now via Verdi.
In 1821 the candle lighting at La Scala was replaced by a large central chandelier with safety lamps (called "argants"), which remained in use until the gas lighting system was introduced in 1860.

An exceptional new season of serious opera opened between 1822 and 1825, with Chiara e Serafina by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) and Il pirata by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835). The later operas of Donizetti performed at La Scala were (until 1850) Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia, Torquato Tasso, La figlia del reggimento, La favorita, Linda di Chamonix, Don Pasquale, and Poliuto. These were followed (until 1836) by Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Norma, La sonnambula, Beatrice di Tenda, and I puritani.