Milan Nightlife: Places and Districts to Go Out in Milan
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As a busy, bustling city full of young people, Milan has a particularly vibrant nightlife. But that doesn’t begin to capture the real essence of the place, for there’s one thing that really defines the city’s nightlife and makes it stand out from other places - style.
The city takes its clubbing very seriously. Being Milan, there’s not only a wide choice of the very latest tunes but also a highly competitive battle to have the best and most avant-garde interior designs. ‘Hot’ new places seem to be constantly opening in a blaze of publicity to attract the desired catwalk of models and designers.
If you’d rather hangout in a slightly more laidback and unpretentious atmosphere, Navigli caters for the city’s large student population and the more alternative crowd. The area comes alive in the early evening with the ‘aperitivos’ (happy hours) for which the city is famous. Highly recommended is the classic local drink, ‘negroni’, a potent blend of bitter Campari, gin, red Martini and ice.
On hot summer nights, one of most scenic places to have a few drinks is the jumping little bars set on barges that line the area’s canals. From there, a handful of good live music venues (particularly a couple of excellent jazz bars) carry the party on long into the night.
But nothing in Milan could exactly be described as casual. For the less formal traveler, the Corso Como part of town (near the Stazione Garibaldi) is to be avoided: this is where the city’s models and fashionistas hang out. If you’re not dressed in the latest designer threads, you won’t get past the beady-eyed fashion police on the door.
On balance, Milan’s nightlife will, as with the city in general, probably appeal more to the style-conscious. But it’s by no means solely the preserve of the fashion set. From shabby little neighborhood bars and cafés full of locals chattering animatedly through to livelier student places, music venues and the city’s seriously chic cocktail bars and clubs, it's hard not to warm to Milan's cosmopolitan diversity.