Chinatown & Monumentale

The adventure will start on Via Paolo Sarpi, the heart of the Chinatown neighborhood. Sarpi Street is the iconic representation of Milan’s multiculturalism, open-mindness and collaboration.

Chinatown is much more than a simple multi-ethnic quarter. It’s a fascinating fusion between Chinese and Italian traditions and influences. Our local guide will show you some of the main “institutions” of ethical cuisine such as Ravioleria Sarpi, which is a great example of mixing Chinese traditions and recipes with high quality italian raw materials, Noodles & soups, which was one of the first Chinese restaurants in Milan and some of the best ethnical supermarkets that can be found in whole Italy.

From the extreme est to Old Milan… Next part of the tour will take you to “Borgo dei Ortolani” or Borgh di Scigulatt, the ancient neighborhood full of local markets and artisan shops, the typical Milanese houses with ringhiera and ruins of antique monasteries. Before turning east again, we will stop at Arco della Pace, one of the most iconic arches in Milan, which is a doorway to Parco Sempione as well.

We will leave the lively atmosphere of Chinatown, to discover our last (quite unusual) stop. Monumental Cemetery of Milan, is definitely one of the most impressive complexes in whole Milan. With its 25000 square meters, is a true open air museum, where art, culture,religion and modernism collide. The guided tour of the Monumental Cemetery of Milan will be a walk through the salient aspects of culture, ranging from the romantic literature of Foscolo and Leopardi to the music of Verdi and Toscanini, from the bizarre and restless art of Wildt and Lucio Fontana to the scientific discoveries of Darwin and Gorini, from archeology to industry and from publishing to cinema… the Monumental Cemetery will appear like a large photographic album that crystallizes the history of past centuries and makes it tangible through the extraordinary artistic imagination of funerary monuments.

We will also visit the Crematorium Temple, commissioned by Alberto Keller and developed by the Pavia doctor Paolo Gorini, becoming a symbol of the positivist culture of the late nineteenth century, which served as a model for the most important Italian and foreign crematorium temples, and then we will return to the tombs and discover the history of the great industrial families of Milan, from Campari to Falck, from Erba to Bocconi, in an inexhaustible journey of emotions and discoveries.