Collina dei Ciliegi

Collina dei Ciliegi is an urban park in Milan's Bicocca district, thirty thousand square metres of calm amid city life. Its centrepiece is an artificial hill, a cone twenty-five metres high. A spiral path winds up its side, and direct staircases offer the shorter route. At the top, the view stretches over the surrounding area.

The hill is built from the debris of the Pirelli area's redevelopment, and former industrial land has become a green oasis. Cherry trees fill a quarter of the surface: Prunus serrulata 'Kanzan', Prunus avium and Prunus subhirtella. Over six thousand shrubs keep them company across the park.

Relaxation is the point: you walk, you rest on the grassy knolls, you cycle the paths. You find no sports facilities, no playgrounds and no dog areas. In the blooming season, more than eight hundred cherry trees turn their quarter of the park into a spectacle.