Cascine, rural buildings or farmsteads.
Milan is a rural metropolis.

Observe with your eyes the green lung of Milan where herons and storks fly.

Get a close-up-view of the paddy fields.

I know it sounds incredible to the most, but Milan is a rural metropolis. Book your private guided tour now

Suburban districts cover a huge area in which there is much to be discovered and appreciated: old villas and noble palaces, old mills that still run, churches, and abbeys, monumental farmhouses, cascine, incorporated into the metropolis.

The word cascina refers to a type of rural building traditional of the Po Valley and is reported at least since 16th century. 

The Po Valley itself, in Italian Pianura padana, namely the plain of the river Po, is at the origin of the name of Milan.

Milan was founded around VI century B.C. by an ancient Celtic population, the Insubres, who settled in what is now the Italian region of Lombardy, Insubria. As the chosen spot was in the middle of the plain, the city was named Medhelan, which was latinised into Mediolanum on the arrival of the Romans in 222 B.C. Contact Barbara Quarello now

As most cascine were isolated, semi-autonomous settlements, many of them included public buildings such as churches, inns, or even schools. For the same reason, cascine were sometimes fortified structures, with defensive walls, towers, moats and drawbridges.

Production in the cascine mainly consisted in wheat, maize, rice, barley, milk and cheese, cultivated trees included cottonwood, elm, and mulberry. 

Throughout the 20th century cascine have gone through a gradual but relentless decline basically losing the function they formerly fulfilled and some of them have been absorbed by the urban sprawl and have gone through a land use conversion, getting adapted for many different purposes such as residential buildings, libraries, schools, hotels, restaurants, government buildings, commercial areas, etc.; all major airports in the Milanese area, Linate, LIN, Malpensa, MXP, were built on land that was previously occupied by cascine. 

A number of modern toponyms from Lombardy includes the word cascina, sometimes spelled cassina, as these place names refer to settlements which originated from a cascina, e.g. Cascina Gobba, Cassina Triulza (neighbourhoods of Milan), Cassina de’ Pecchi and Cassinetta di Lugagnano.

Duration: 5 or 7 hours.

The completely customized tour includes a private high-quality vehicle registered for passengers driven by a professional driver. 

The length of the private guided tour depends on whether you wish to have lunch or dinner in a cascina.