Today, of course, it's a shopping mall.

The Galleria's domed intersection of cathedral and national opera creates a thunderbolt of boutiques amidst a blizzard of devoted shoppers. Consumerism comes before religion in Italy's fashion capital. Locals say the churches are losing their well-heeled young flock of pure new wool parishioners. Where are they, pray tell? I try Dolce & Gabbana.

Corso Venezia, where two of D&G's five mammoth flagship Milanese stores are based, is part of the golden rectangle, bordered by Via Manzoni and Corso Venezia, Via Montenapoleone and Via della Spiga. The designer stores offer an unattainably warm, plush world of near-perfection that will keep you aspiring . . . and buying . . . forever.

I'm meeting friends in the new, hip D&G Martini bar, so first I browse. There's a lot of fur and leather D&G combos, proving that Italian labels can never be too flashy.

The assistants, poured into skinny hipsters, pout and pose. They don't gossip or groan within earshot of customers like they do at home. They are here for the hard sell.

Yes, this instead of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper at the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie (even if one of the 12 dudes with long hair could be Mary Magdalene). These days, with Dan Brown's fictional conspiracy theories, you have to book way in advance. At least, after visiting the stores, you can still walk straight into the Duomo.

Still, I try not to miss a production at La Scala when I'm here, the famous opera house that has just undergone a massive facelift.

There's also a museum upstairs with a lock of Mozart's hair, cast of Chopin's elegant fingers and portraits of opera singers like Giuditta Pasta, the great soprano from Lombardy for whom Vincenzo Bellini wrote Norma and La Sonnambula.

I watch La Sylphide, a reconstruction of the original 1832 ballet, gleaned from recently discovered documents. A young Scotsman, James, is split between his wife and the world he knows and the dream of a sylph and another life. Oh yes. That old chestnut: the geezer you heard tell about who spends all his time looking over your shoulder.

Prior to the Second World War, Italy was known for its textiles and leather, but Milan didn't emerge as a fashion capital until the 1960s. Aside from Milan Fashion Week, this city is also known for calcio e figa (crassly translated as soccer and pussy), which could be why men like James in La Sylphide live at home with their mamas for so long.

Milan is not as beautiful as Rome or Florence or Venice. But I've been coming here for 10 years. Back then, my sister and her gruppo d'amici sat outside Milanese cafes smoking cigarettes, with their dogs. Most of that carefree group has dispersed to the suburbs with their children. My sister to Lake Como, which I'll come to later.

The subject of commitment-phobic men comes up again over lunch in Tuberi Americani . . . a 1950s-style diner with photographs of Cary Grant and Sophia Loren. The restaurant is just off Corso di Porta Ticinese where my favourite family-run shoe store still exists, a feat for Italy, an economy still top-heavy in struggling small businesses.

Corso di Porta Ticinese is bookended by a neoclassical arch that was once the city gate.

This area was an important port during Roman times and now hosts the University of Milan. Near the Navigli district, there are trendy second-hand stores, cafes and the odd sex shop.

But back to Tuberi Americani where I meet an economist buddy, originally from rural Colorado, who sums up the trouble with Italian men thus: "There is a panic among my single women friends at the growing number of 38-year-old single men living at home. So many of them stick with one job for life and refuse to leave home."

My own home-away-from home is the fivestar, neo-Classical Hotel Principe di Savoia, originally built in 1927, in Piazza della Republica. It recaptures turn-of-the-century Milan with a lavish collection of belle epoque styles.

The ornate Giarindo d'Inverno bar, with its stained-glass dome is the best of old Hollywood movies circa 1930s.

The hotel also has a 490-square metre Presidential Suite, one of the largest in Europe.

George HW Bush, Madonna and Saudi Arabian royalty have dipped in its private pool f (not at the same time) at 13,000 a night. Two regulars are Libya's Colonel Gaddafi and George Clooney, who purchased a villa at Laglio on the shores of Lake Como.

Clooney is not Como's only celebrity affiliation. Caius Plinius Secundus . . . more commonly known as Pliny the Elder . . . was born in 23 or 24 at Novum Comum (now Como). The late Gianni Versace bought Villa Le Fontanelle in Moltrasio in 1977.

I traditionally spend Christmas and Easter with my sister in Lake Como, who, I'm glad to boast, has a view of both the Duomo and the lake. She lives in Como itself, but the upsidedown Y-shaped lake stretches from the Alpine peaks in the north to the plains in the south, 70 kilometres from Milan.

The best time to visit Lake Como is spring to late autumn; tour guides will tell you Italian lakes are 'trish' (sad) the rest of the year, though I take heart in their peaceful off-season icy grey stillness. Many hotels, like the famous Villa D'Este . . . a former 16th century princely residence, surrounded by a 25 acres park . . . don't open until March. Como's own Duomo is a fusion of Gothic, Romanesque and Baroque. Its facade is unusual as it gives pride of place to two famous pagans, Pliny the Older and Younger. The 19th century Teatro Sociale, with a neo-Classical facade, had its day in the sun when La Scala was badly damaged during the second world war.

Another day, we drive up the winding road to Il Bettolino, a village restaurant with an open fire, in the mountain town of Brunate. Brunate is 720 metres above Como, which is a little more temperate as it's snugly nestled in a valley. Today, Brunate is better for afternoon lunch. It's full of crumbling villas of faded grandeur and once-popular hotels like the Grand Hotel Brunate and Grand Hotel Milano, whose glory days are long over and have now been converted for other uses.

From Il Bettolino's window, the snow-capped Alps stretch north and Villa D'Este carves an elegant square/white cube on the shores of Lake Como in the distance. Here, in the rural mountain town of Brunate, the quiet life outside of Milan isn't so bad after all.

The facts

Getting there Aer Lingus (www. aerlingus. com) and Alitalia (www. alitalia. ie) fly to Milan.

Staying there In Milan: Hotel Principe di Savoia Milano, Piazza della Repubblica 17, 20124 Milan.

Telephone: 0039 02 62301; www. hotelprincipedisavoia. com In Lake Como: Villa D'Este, Via Regina 40, 22012 Cernobbio. Telephone: 0039 031 3481; www. villadeste. it. This is one of the finest in the world, but the region is also full of budget accommodation.

Eating out In Milan: Tuberi Americani, Via Vetere 9, Milan. Telephone: 0039 02 83241152. It's great value, has a lunchtime buzz and is close to the shopping street of Corso di Porta Ticinese.

In Lake Como: Osteria del Gallo Trattoria.

Via Vitani 16, 22100 Como. Telephone: 0039 031 272591. Family-run restaurant popular with the locals at relatively cheap prices.