What to see · Sesto San Giovanni

More places of interest

• Parco Nord Milano

  Parco Nord Milano is a peri-urban park of about 640 hectares on the northern edge of Milan. Classed as regional, it extends across the municipalities of Milan, Bresso, Cusano Milanino, Cormano, Cinisello Balsamo, Novate Milanese and Sesto San Giovanni; the body that manages it has its legal seat in Sesto, in the Cascina Centro Parco, which is however entered from Bresso.

  What to see

  The park grew on the disused grounds of Breda Aeronautica, after the Second World War. The idea dates from the late 1960s: in 1970 a prefectural decree classed it a «park of public interest» and in 1975 the Region of Lombardy recognised it as a regional park; the first reforestation work began in 1983. It lies in one of the most densely urbanised settings in Europe, once marked by historic factories now almost all gone, and the remaining farm plots that escaped concrete have been partly reclaimed, replanted and equipped for public use. The sources give over 350 hectares of green, made up of woods, clearings, tree rows, shrub thickets, hedges and small ponds; there are more than a hundred woody species, but only about 30 per cent are native.

  In the northern sector, the park's first lake, finished in 2015 and called the Niguarda lake, receives its water from the Villoresi canal; the banks are mostly natural and not reachable by the public, to favour a wetland environment where, among others, the crested newt and the grey heron have reappeared. Inside the park is also the villa of Alessandro Manzoni at Brusuglio. On the small hill reached from the via Giancarlo Clerici entrance, in the territory of Sesto San Giovanni, stands the Monumento al Deportato, a work of 1998 by the BBPR studio of Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, a former deportee, and his son Alberico: it is dedicated to the workers of Sesto's factories arrested and deported to Nazi camps after the strikes of March 1944.

  Visiting

  The park is largely flat; the avenues are asphalt or gravel and some dirt paths cross the woods. Three cycle-pedestrian footbridges span it, on via Gian Carlo Clerici, via XX Settembre and viale Fulvio Testi, and others give access from the neighbouring districts; in Bresso there is an open-air cycling velodrome. Opening hours and services do not appear in the sources consulted: check with the managing body.

  Our editors' tip

  Climb the «montagnetta» (little mountain), on the border between Sesto San Giovanni and Bresso, south of the footbridge on via Gian Carlo Clerici: it formed in the last century from steelworks waste and was later reclaimed. On it stands a concrete and wood structure, the «teatrino», used for various events.

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