For lunch, squeeze your way into La Latteria (via San Marco 24; 00 39 02 6597 653; open 12.15-2.30pm; no bookings; mains from €11/£7.50), a tiny caf?tyle eatery serving Italian specialities such as duck salami, the softest calves’ liver, and butter-baked eggs. Come the evening, Paper Moon (via Bagutta 1; 00 39 02 7602 2297; mains from €14/£9.50) offers irresistible pasta, for example giant ravioli tossed in truffle oil. Like all big cities, Milan goes through phases – of both wearied inertia when nothing seems to happen, and frenzied activity when it’s almost impossible to keep pace.
Right now, Milan is moving fast. The past three years have seen the arrival of no fewer than six seriously chic design hotels (with another to come this summer from the Bulgari jewellery house), a clutch of ice-cool bars and three sublime spas created by Dolce & Gabbana, Gianfranco Ferre and leading homeware company Culti. In December, La Scala will re-open with its new Mario Botta-designed tower, followed by the Museum of the 20th Century housed within a striking Fascist-era palazzo next to the Duomo.Best hotelThe recent wave of designer accommodation was started by The Gray (via San Raffaele 6; 00 39 02 7208 951; ; doubles from €330/£220) and it has yet to be upstaged.

The location – next to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele – is as central as it’s possible to be, and the faintly boudoir-style decor is both amusing and modish. The price of £869 per person (based on two sharing) includes return flights from Heathrow, bed and breakfast in three-star hotels, transfers, guides, tours, excursions and some meals All visitors need a visa. Tourist visas cost £30 from The Russian Consulate, 5 Kensington Palace Gardens, London W8.Where to find out moreFor more information and to obtain a visa application form call 020-7229 8027.. As well as short, weekend breaks, it offers an eight-day escorted “Golden Ring” tour with monthly departures from April to September. Leo Tolstoy was almost locked away here after his excommunication.

The nearby town of Vladimir was a holding camp on the great “Road of Tears”, the highway from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod and the Urals, a site of banishment first discovered by the Tsars then willingly adopted by the Soviets.The Orthodox Church, however, proved impossible to exile and now it is enjoying a powerful resurgence. President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB operative, chose to attend a televised Mass in Suzdal on Christmas Eve. The number of visitors to the Golden Ring dropped disastrously during the chaos of the early 1990s, but they are steadily building once again, thanks in part to the rediscovered spirit of religion.GIVE ME THE FACTSHow to get thereNicholas Pyke travelled as a guest of Intourist (0870 112 1232; ). The huge Saviour Monastery of St Euthymius that guards the northern entrance to the town has been variously a jail, a mental asylum and a teenage reformatory. Boris III sent his first, childless wife to the Convent of the Intercession in 1525, a trick repeated by Ivan the Terrible in 1575 and even the revered Peter the Great in 1689. There is also a hotel in a refurbished merchant’s house run by the joint Vladimir-Suzdal museum authority.Much of the past to be rediscovered in these towns is a glorious one But some more disturbing shadows lurk here, too. For centuries, Suzdal has been a place of exile, particularly for the unfortunate wives and daughters of Russian royalty.

It comes as a surprise to learn that the Brezhnev regime was responsible for a great deal of the restoration and maintenance of towns like Suzdal, although most of the churches remained closed to worshippers.Those wanting a more authentic feel can try to find space at the hotels run within the grounds of the Convent of the Deposition of the Robe, or the Convent of the Intercession overlooking the river. But booking ahead is still a good idea.In Suzdal, the main tourism centre and hotel is anything but traditional: a low-level 1970s structure, purpose-built for large crowds. The irony is that the town had many more visitors during the Soviet era – two million a year – when the trade unions organised cultural holidays for the workers (with suitably debunking commentary on the ecclesiastical past). Independent travel is quite possible but plenty of reading beforehand and some grasp of Russian would help. Hiring a guide would be a better option for most, and these are in plentiful supply. Trained for the most part by Intourist – in the days before the famous state travel company was split into more than 50 private franchises – they are formidably professional and well-informed.The winter months have distinct advantages for visitors, including the beauty of the snow-covered landscape and the absence of crowds It is also easier to find accommodation. The number of hotels is steadily increasing, many of them using traditionally-styled wooden cabins which, to a Western visitor, have a Scandinavian or Alpine feel.