Milan at Christmas: markets, lights, and the Duomo

I passed through Milan for a few days last December, right before flying to Asia. It was cold, lit up, and quietly heavy. But Milan at Christmas is genuinely worth a stop, so here is what it is actually like.

The Duomo and the Galleria

You start at the Duomo. At night, lit up, with a small Christmas market clustered at its feet, the cathedral is the kind of thing that stops you mid step. A two minute walk away, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the grand glass-domed arcade, is decorated, packed, and beautiful in a completely different, polished way. Between the two you have the whole heart of Christmas in Milan.

Milan in December is made for walking

Then you just walk. In December the streets in the center are strung with lights: golden installations hanging over the narrow shopping streets, small lit trees lining the pavements. With the cold and the quiet, it is one of the prettier European cities to wander with no plan at all.

L’Artigiano in Fiera, the big Christmas market

The one to plan for is L’Artigiano in Fiera, Milan’s enormous artisan Christmas market out at the fairgrounds. I went one day with friends. It is country pavilions and food stalls from all over the world under one roof: cheese the size of your head, cured meat, crafts, street food from dozens of countries. If you are in Milan in December and you like food, you go. We spent hours just eating our way through it.

The quiet part

I will be honest about the rest, because this is a diary, not a brochure. I was in Milan at the quiet end of a couple of things I had been carrying across a few countries, and for most of those days I was somewhere else in my head. One morning the person I was with left early while I was out getting coffee. I came back to an empty room and sent the most Italian message of my life: “bb where are you? i took cappuccino and saccottino for you.” By the time I left, it had all come apart cleanly, and I flew to Asia for the first time with no weight and no thoughts. Milan, somehow, was the right place to set something down.

If you go

Go for the Duomo at night, the Galleria, the lit streets, and a day at L’Artigiano in Fiera. December is cold, but the city wears it well. It is a short, easy, beautiful stop, whether you are passing through happy or, like I was, putting something to rest.

The full map of where I have been is on the travels page.