The Navigli

Milan had a canal ring; most of it was covered over between the wars. What survives is two working waterways running south-west out of the city — the Naviglio Grande, dug from the twelfth century, and the Naviglio Pavese — with a towpath and a bar on nearly every metre of it.

Leonardo worked on the lock system that fed them. Today the district is where Milan drinks in the evening.

What it costs

⭐ Free to walk, at any hour. The canals and both towpaths are public street.

What costs is the aperitivo, and it is the best-value dinner in the city — see Food & Drink.

When to go

⭐ Six in the evening onwards, when the aperitivo hour starts and the towpaths fill. ⚠️ On the last Sunday of most months the antiques market runs the length of the Naviglio Grande and the district is impassable in the best way.

Getting there

Porta Genova on M2, then five minutes on foot. Walking down from the Colonne takes about fifteen minutes and is the better approach.

⭐ One urban ticket lasts 90 minutes and covers the metro, the trams and the buses inside the city zones — one metro journey plus as many surface changes as you can fit. A contactless bank card works at the gate, and ⚠️ you tap the same card again on the way out of a metro station. See Getting Around.

If you only have an hour

Down one towpath of the Naviglio Grande and back up the other, with a stop. Forty minutes, and the far end past the Vicolo dei Lavandai is quieter than the first hundred metres.

What people get wrong

⚠️ The first block off Porta Genova is the worst of it. Keep walking — fifteen minutes down the Naviglio Grande the bars stop being aimed at people who have walked fifteen minutes.

⚠️ Check August. Around Ferragosto on the 15th much of the city shuts for two or three weeks, and a great many places simply put a handwritten sign on the door. Museums and the big sights mostly stay open; the restaurant you had chosen very often does not.