The beautiful city of Milan is an industrial and commercial centre situated in northern Italy and is the regional capital of Lombardy.  It has a large historic city centre surrounded by numerous suburbs which are served by a comprehensive tram, bus, trolleybus and Metro service.  Milan is only some 20 km from Lake Como and the other Italian lakes, so makes a superb destination for the lover of transport or for those just seeking a relaxing holiday!  All public transport in Milan is run by ATM (Azienda Trasporti Milanesi).  The current tram fleet is made up of trams covering a period of almost 90 years.  The Peter Witt designed tramcars were built by six different manufactures, Breda being one of them.  Known as the ATM Class 1500, they were first introduced in 1928 and still operate today, most having been refurbished, but to their original style.  The ATM Class 4600 and 4700 were built in the 1950s by OM Stanga and Breda.  The ATM Class 4900 were built in the 1970s either by Fiat or OM Stanga.  This class are currently being rebuilt to include air conditioning, new windows, floors and seats and are in a smart stylish livery, which you will see on this programme.  They are all high floor trams with limited accessibility as they were built as light rail vehicles for future light rail schemes, but these schemes were never built.  Modern low floor trams are ATM Class 7000 Adtranz Eurotram and the ATM Class 7100, 7500 and 7600, which are Ansaldobreda Sirio cars of different lengths.

On this first DVD programme we concentrate on the city centre and riding the trams.  Filming starts at the Piazza Cordusio and Via Orefici to give you an introduction to the city, situated not far from the beautiful cathedral square known as the Piazza del Duomo.  Further filming takes place around these streets before we board tram 1719 on route 1 to Piazza Cincinnato. Further tram rides are taken on tram 1677 on route 5 to the central railway station and back to Via Tunisia.  A ride on tram 1754 on route 33 takes us to Stazione Garibaldi.  After filming at Carlo Farini we board tram 4730 back to the city centre.  Further rides are taken on tram 4612 to Santa Margherita and tram 1687 to Via Grossi.

Piazza Castelli is the terminus of tram route 1 where our cameras take in some of the action before arriving at L.go Quinto Alpini for a ride on tram 4946, an unrebuilt Fiat Ferroviaria on route 27 back to the city.  We complete our filming in and around the city streets as part one of this two-part programme draws to a close.  All of the locations on this programme are subtitled to help you identify the locations should you wish to journey to Milan to take in the atmosphere of this wonderful city.  Join us in Part 2 to sample the delights of the trolleybuses and some of the tram workings in the suburbs as well as more from the city centre.