Description
Parco Sempione is Milan's great public park behind the Sforza Castle: about 386,000 square meters of lawns, paths and trees, between the castle and the Arco della Pace. It has fitness trails for running, a playground and sculptures scattered here and there.
You almost always enter from the castle and end up at the Arco della Pace, where Corso Sempione begins. In between lies an English-style park, romantic: avenues, a little lake, a belvedere with an old monumental elm.
Among the things to see is the Torre Branca, built in 1932-33 to a design by Gio Ponti, Cesare Chiodi and Ettore Ferrari. Further down is the Palazzo dell'Arte, home of the Triennale, and the Arena Civica, the arena that closes the park on its northeastern side.
The park is also an open-air museum: Giorgio de Chirico's Mysterious Baths, a fountain made for the 1973 Triennale, the equestrian monument to Napoleon III and the Ponte delle Sirenette, saved when the canals of the inner ring were covered over in 1930. In the center is a copy of Alberto Burri's "Teatro Continuo", a stage that is always free.
On foggy evenings, says a Milanese legend, in the deserted park you can smell violets. Then a lady dressed in black appears, her face veiled, holding out an icy hand. Whoever takes it is never the same again.
Ghosts aside, the park almost didn't exist. After Italian unification, a real estate company proposed to divide into lots the old parade ground behind the castle, and to tear down the castle itself. The Milanese, however, would not have it.
The protests were such that they led to the city's first urban plan, which in the end set the whole area aside as a public garden. Even earlier, here lay the Visconti's "Barco", later enlarged by the Sforza, a reserve of oaks and chestnuts with exotic animals.
The park was built between 1888 and 1894 to a design by Emilio Alemagna. Then came the expositions, and with the Triennali the park filled up with art.
Don't miss
• De Chirico's Mysterious Baths.
• The Torre Branca.
• The Ponte delle Sirenette.
• The Arco della Pace.
Did you know?
• Near the Arena is the "fountain of rotten water": low-mineral water that tastes of sulfur.
• In 1951 a chairlift carried visitors around at a height of ten meters. It lasted a year.
• In 2011 the park hosted a cross-country skiing World Cup race.
You almost always enter from the castle and end up at the Arco della Pace, where Corso Sempione begins. In between lies an English-style park, romantic: avenues, a little lake, a belvedere with an old monumental elm.
Among the things to see is the Torre Branca, built in 1932-33 to a design by Gio Ponti, Cesare Chiodi and Ettore Ferrari. Further down is the Palazzo dell'Arte, home of the Triennale, and the Arena Civica, the arena that closes the park on its northeastern side.
The park is also an open-air museum: Giorgio de Chirico's Mysterious Baths, a fountain made for the 1973 Triennale, the equestrian monument to Napoleon III and the Ponte delle Sirenette, saved when the canals of the inner ring were covered over in 1930. In the center is a copy of Alberto Burri's "Teatro Continuo", a stage that is always free.
On foggy evenings, says a Milanese legend, in the deserted park you can smell violets. Then a lady dressed in black appears, her face veiled, holding out an icy hand. Whoever takes it is never the same again.
Ghosts aside, the park almost didn't exist. After Italian unification, a real estate company proposed to divide into lots the old parade ground behind the castle, and to tear down the castle itself. The Milanese, however, would not have it.
The protests were such that they led to the city's first urban plan, which in the end set the whole area aside as a public garden. Even earlier, here lay the Visconti's "Barco", later enlarged by the Sforza, a reserve of oaks and chestnuts with exotic animals.
The park was built between 1888 and 1894 to a design by Emilio Alemagna. Then came the expositions, and with the Triennali the park filled up with art.
Don't miss
• De Chirico's Mysterious Baths.
• The Torre Branca.
• The Ponte delle Sirenette.
• The Arco della Pace.
Did you know?
• Near the Arena is the "fountain of rotten water": low-mineral water that tastes of sulfur.
• In 1951 a chairlift carried visitors around at a height of ten meters. It lasted a year.
• In 2011 the park hosted a cross-country skiing World Cup race.