Lombardy

It is the most populous region in Italy, with ten million inhabitants, the first for density and the one with the greatest number of comuni: there are 1506, spread over twelve provinces and one metropolitan city. By area, on the other hand, it is only fourth. And yet Lombardy can disappear into nature within half an hour by train: the lakes of Como, Garda and Maggiore, with their villas and gardens dropping to the water, have been the favourite refuge of writers and travellers for two centuries. Milan alone has more than one million two hundred thousand inhabitants, about an eighth of the whole region.

Milan runs — fashion, design, finance — but it keeps Leonardo's Last Supper, a UNESCO site since 1980, and a marble cathedral raised over six centuries. Outside the capital there remain Bergamo Alta, ringed by the Venetian walls also recognised by UNESCO, and Mantua, the stone dream of the Gonzaga. To the north the region reaches Switzerland, to the east Lake Garda: in between lies the plain that made it rich.