From Lambrate station south across the tracks into the Ortica, the old farming hamlet of Lambrate sung by Enzo Jannacci. Since 2015 the OrticaNoodles collective and residents have painted about 20 large murals here (OR.ME, Ortica Memoria), each telling a story of 20th-century Milan: an open-air museum, free.
Best time: Daylight, ideally a weekend morning, for the murals; stay on for lunch in an Ortica trattoria
The route, stop by stop
- 1Stazione di Milano Lambrate (M2)
Start at the M2/rail station on Piazza Enrico Bottini and head south-east to the Ortica. 5 min.
- 2Wall of the women of the 20th century
On the wing of the Istituto Alberghiero Pasolini, Via Trentacoste 9-5: portraits including Alda Merini, Anna Kuliscioff, Antonia Pozzi, Camilla Cederna and Liliana Segre. 15 min.
- 3Wall of legality
Railway bridge at Via Rosso di San Secondo and Via San Faustino: Giorgio Ambrosoli, General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, Emilio Alessandrini, Walter Tobagi, Tina Anselmi and Lea Garofalo. 10 min.
- 4Via San Faustino: popular music and cooperation murals
Along the railway bridge near Via San Faustino 10, the mural of Milanese song (Ornella Vanoni, Enzo Jannacci, Dario Fo, Giorgio Gaber, Nanni Svampa); at No. 5, on the Cooperativa Edificatrice Ortica, the cooperation mural copied from a 1914 photograph. The 2023 'murales dei diritti' honouring 200 people who fought for civil rights is also on Via San Faustino. 20 min.
- 5Chiesa dei Santi Faustino e Giovita
The small church that is the Ortica's historic centre, on the old Roman road to Brescia and Aquileia. In the Madonna delle Grazie chapel is a Byzantine-style Madonna and Child fresco no later than the 13th century. 10 min.
- 6Via Ortica
The street of the old Trattoria del Gatto Nero, in a 15th-century building, where Milanese singers met and sang late into the night; YesMilano notes the area is still full of trattorie. 15 min.
- 7Former Lambrate station
Via Amadeo: Lambrate's station stood here, in the Ortica, from 1896 to 1931; the passenger building survives. 5 min.
More walks in Milan
- Duomo to Brera: the classic centre
- Castello, Parco Sempione and the Arco della Pace
- Leonardo and old Milan: Magenta and Sant'Ambrogio
- Ticinese and Navigli food-grazing walk
- New Milan and Chinatown: Porta Nuova, Isola and Via Sarpi
- Porta Venezia Liberty and the Quadrilatero del Silenzio
- NoLo and Via Padova: Piazzale Loreto to Parco Trotter
- Isola to the Martesana canal: Sacro Volto to Gorla
- Porta Romana to Chiaravalle Abbey: Fondazione Prada and the Vettabbia valley