Italy
Milan
Italy's capital of fashion, design and money - and a far better art city than its buttoned-up reputation suggests.
Milan is the Italy that goes to work: the country's money, fashion and design all run out of one grey-and-glass city on the Lombard plain, and it wears far less charm on the outside than Rome or Florence. What it hides behind those plain facades is the Duomo, a Gothic cathedral of extraordinary intricacy, Leonardo's Last Supper, a first-rank picture gallery and courtyards, showrooms and canal-side bars that only open up to people who go looking. It is also the best-connected base in northern Italy, with the lakes, the Alps and half a dozen art cities inside an easy day's return.
Suggested stay
2–4 days
Language
Italian
Currency
EUR
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love Milan
Design and fashion this is where Italian style is actually made and sold, from the couture streets to the furniture showrooms and design museums
Art on the quiet Renaissance masterworks, a great picture gallery and a strong contemporary scene, with a fraction of the crush you queue in further south
The evening ritual the aperitivo hour is a local invention, and the Lombard kitchen - saffron risotto, breaded veal, buttery cakes - is richer and more northern than the Italy most people picture
Lakes and mountains at the door: the great northern lakes, walled hill towns and the Alps are all within a day's return by train
Best time to visit
Mar-Oct
16-31° days
45.464° N, 9.190° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Rome
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Weather & when to go to Milan
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Mar-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Milan
There is no bad season, only a flat one: from late autumn the plain pulls in grey damp and fog and the light goes out of the city, though the galleries, shopping and opera are all indoors anyway. The two real pinches are the big fashion and furniture trade fairs, when hotel rooms across the city get scarce and dear, and the middle of August, when much of Milan shuts up and leaves.
Top things to do in Milan
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Duomo di Milano - walk the marble roof terraces
history scenic 👍 PopularFive centuries in the building and still the most extravagant Gothic thing in Italy: a hedge of pinnacles, flying buttresses and thousands of statues in pink-white Candoglia marble. The point is the roof, where stairs and a lift put you out among the spires with the gilded Madonnina above you and the square below; inside, look for the sundial line set into the floor by the entrance.
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Santa Maria delle Grazie - Leonardo's Last Supper
culture arts history 👍 PopularPainted straight onto a refectory wall in the 1490s with an experimental technique that began flaking almost immediately, and restored back to a ghost of itself. Visits are timed, silent and short, in small groups behind climate doors, and slots go months ahead - this is the one thing in Milan you book before you book flights. The Bramante apse next door is worth the extra ten minutes.
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Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II - the iron-and-glass arcade
shopping history 👍 PopularThe 1870s arcade linking the cathedral square to the opera house, with a glass dome over a mosaic floor and cafes that have been charging for the view since the Kingdom of Italy was new. Tradition says you spin a heel on the mosaic bull for luck, which is why the poor animal has a hole worn through it.
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Pinacoteca di Brera - northern Italy's great picture gallery
culture artsMantegna's brutally foreshortened Dead Christ, Piero della Francesca's Montefeltro altarpiece, Raphael's Marriage of the Virgin, a Caravaggio supper and Hayez's The Kiss, all in a Baroque palace whose courtyard doubles as the art academy. Rarely crowded, and easily the best two hours of art in the city after the Leonardo.
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Castello Sforzesco - the ducal fortress and a final Michelangelo
history culture artsThe Sforza castle holds a stack of civic museums, among them the Rondanini Pieta, the unfinished sculpture Michelangelo was still cutting days before he died, and a ceiling of interlaced mulberry branches painted by Leonardo. Behind it Parco Sempione runs to a Napoleonic triumphal arch, which makes the whole thing a good half-day on foot.
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Teatro alla Scala - the house singers fear
culture artsOpened in 1778 and still the hardest room in opera, with a gallery audience that has booed careers to a halt. Even without a ticket the museum gets you a look into a red-and-gold box, and standing places high in the loggione are the cheap way in for anyone willing to queue and stand.
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Cimitero Monumentale - a sculpture gallery that happens to be a cemetery
culture arts off beaten path ⭐ Highly recommendedMilan's industrial dynasties competed in death as hard as in business, and the result is an open-air museum of art nouveau, futurist and modernist tombs, including a bronze Last Supper over a drinks family's grave and an obelisk with a helix inside it. Free to walk, quiet, and the most underrated hour in the city.
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Quadrilatero della Moda - the fashion quadrilateral
shoppingFour streets behind the cathedral - Montenapoleone, della Spiga, Sant'Andrea, Manzoni - hold the flagship of essentially every Italian house, in palazzi with courtyards worth a look even if you buy nothing. For actual shopping, the outlets are out of town and the vintage and concept shops sit over in Brera and the Navigli.
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Navigli - the canal quarter after dark
nightlife music foodTwo surviving canals from a medieval network Leonardo tinkered with, now the city's most reliable evening: bars and trattorie down both towpaths of the Naviglio Grande, the Darsena basin at the top, and a lane of old washhouse steps tucked off to one side. Busy and touristy at the water, better one street back.
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Aperitivo and the Milanese table - eat the way the city does
food ⭐ Highly recommendedThe pre-dinner drink with food included is a Milanese invention, and the bitter red vermouth behind half the cocktails was born here too; order one, take the snacks, and let it run long. At the table the local cooking is northern and rich - saffron risotto stained gold with bone marrow, a breaded veal cutlet the size of a plate, slow-cooked ossobuco with lemon gremolata, and the tall domed Christmas cake the city gave the world.
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Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio and the Colonne di San Lorenzo - the old bones of the city
historyAmbrose, the bishop who made Milan a centre of early Christianity, founded his brick basilica in the fourth century and still lies in its crypt beside two martyrs. Ten minutes away a row of Roman columns stands in front of another ancient church, a reminder that this was an imperial capital, and a spot where half the city's students drink on warm nights.
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Fondazione Prada - contemporary art in a converted distillery
culture artsA former gin plant south of the centre rebuilt by Rem Koolhaas, with one tower dipped in gold leaf and a bar decorated to look like a 1950s Milanese cafe by a film director. Ambitious shows, and the architecture alone justifies the metro ride.
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San Siro - a match at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza
culture artsTwo clubs, one enormous concrete drum with spiral ramps up the corners, and a noise on derby nights that is genuinely worth planning a trip around. On non-match days the stadium tour and club museum take you into the tunnel and the dressing rooms.
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Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia - Leonardo's machines
history culture artsItaly's biggest science museum, in an old monastery, with a hall of wooden models built from Leonardo's notebooks, plus real trains, aircraft and a submarine you can walk through in the yard outside. The best rainy-day option in the city and the obvious one with children.
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Porta Nuova and the Bosco Verticale - the new skyline
scenicMilan is the only Italian city with a genuine business skyline, and the twin residential towers planted with several hundred trees are the piece everyone photographs. Around them a raised square, a curved bookshop-cafe strip and a long elevated park make a pleasant late-afternoon walk through to the old Isola streets.
Best areas to stay in Milan
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Brera
Charm and central $$$Cobbled art quarter with grown-up nightlife
Explore hotels in Brera →
Centro Storico (Duomo and Quadrilatero)
First-time visitors $$$Cathedral, arcade and flagship stores
Explore hotels in Centro Storico (Duomo and Quadrilatero) →
Navigli and Porta Genova
Nightlife and eating $$Canal-side bars, markets and studios
Explore hotels in Navigli and Porta Genova →
Porta Venezia
Leafy and easygoing $$Liberty villas, park edge, mixed and open
Explore hotels in Porta Venezia →
Porta Nuova and Isola
Modern Milan $$Towers above an old working-class grid
Explore hotels in Porta Nuova and Isola →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Milan
Getting to & around Milan
Getting there
Fly into Malpensa and take the airport express train into the city, or arrive by high-speed train at Milano Centrale
Flight
Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP)
Roughly 50 km northwest of the city. The Malpensa Express leaves both terminals about every half hour for Cadorna in around 40 min and Milano Centrale in around 50, and coaches to Centrale take about an hour when the ring road behaves. Two other airports serve the city and are often the better arrival: Linate sits just east of the centre, about 15 min in on the M4 metro line or a city bus, and Bergamo Orio al Serio, the low-cost hub, is about an hour away by coach.
Train
Milano Centrale
The monumental 1930s station is the hub for Frecciarossa and Italo high-speed services - Turin in about 1 hr, Bologna about 1 hr, Florence about 1 hr 45, Venice about 2 hr 30, Rome about 3 hr - plus sleepers and international runs to Switzerland, France, Germany and Austria
Train
Porta Garibaldi and Cadorna
The two secondary stations handle much of the regional traffic: Garibaldi for Bergamo, Brescia and the Lecco branch of Lake Como, Cadorna for the Malpensa express and the Varese and Lake Maggiore lines
Coach
Lampugnano
Long-distance and international buses use the terminal at Lampugnano on the M1 metro, out to the northwest, rather than the central station
Drive
Motorways converge here from every direction, but the centre sits inside the Area C access-controlled zone and a wider low-emission ring, both camera-enforced, so leave the car at a park-and-ride at a metro terminus and come in on the train
Getting around
Metro
Five colour-coded lines cover almost everything a visitor wants, run frequently, and are the fastest way across a city that is bigger than it feels
TBC
Tram
An extensive network, including 1920s orange-and-cream cars still in daily service on some routes - slower than the metro and much the nicer ride
TBC
Walking
The core between the cathedral, Brera, the castle and La Scala is flat and easily walked; beyond that ring, distances open out and you will want the metro
Free
City bus and trolleybus
Fills the gaps the rails miss, including the cross-town circular routes and the run out to the stadium
TBC
Suburban trains
The S-line network runs through the city in a tunnel and out to the surrounding towns, and is how locals reach the airports, the lakes and Monza
TBC
Bike and scooter share
Several operators, flat ground and a slowly growing lane network; traffic and tram tracks are the drawback
TBC
Taxi
White cabs wait at ranks or come by phone and app, and cannot be flagged down in the street; supply gets thin in the rain and during trade fairs
TBC
Day trips from Milan
Lake Como
Full dayAlpine lake towns
The classic escape: a fjord-shaped lake under wooded mountains, villa gardens running down to the water, and ferries linking the pretty middle-lake villages. Varenna to Bellagio and Menaggio is the best short crossing if you only have an afternoon.
Getting there
train | ferry | tour | car
40 min by train to Como, or about 1 hr to Varenna
Bergamo
Full dayWalled hill city
Venetian walls wrap a hilltop old town of steep lanes, a frescoed basilica and a chapel of coloured marble, with the modern lower town spread below. Cool, compact and far less visited than it deserves.
Getting there
train | bus | car
About 1 hr by train, then a funicular up
Lake Maggiore and the Borromean Islands
Full dayLake and island palaces
A belle epoque lakefront looking across at three small islands, one carrying a baroque palace and terraced gardens with white peacocks, another a fishermen's village of stacked houses and alleys.
Getting there
train | ferry | car
About 1 hr 15 by train to Stresa, then boat
Pavia and the Certosa
Half dayMonastery and university town
The Certosa di Pavia is a Carthusian monastery with a facade of inlaid marble that reads like a jewellery box, built by the dukes who also began the Duomo; the old university town a few stops further on adds a covered bridge and towers.
Getting there
train | car
About 30 min by regional train
Sirmione and Lake Garda
Full dayLakeside spa peninsula
A long thin peninsula into Italy's biggest lake, with a moated castle at the neck, thermal water, and the ruins of a vast Roman villa among olive trees at the tip.
Getting there
train | bus | ferry | car
About 1 hr 20 by train to Desenzano, then bus or boat
Turin
Full dayBaroque royal city
Italy's first capital, laid out in arcaded boulevards and grand cafes, with the world's best Egyptian collection outside Cairo and a spiral museum of cinema inside a domed tower you ride a glass lift up.
Getting there
train
About 1 hr by high-speed train
A little history of Milan
Milan began as a Celtic settlement on the plain, was taken by Rome in the third century BC as Mediolanum, and grew important enough that by the late empire it served as an imperial capital of the West - which is why the edict that ended the persecution of Christians carries the city's name. Its fourth-century bishop, Ambrose, made it a centre of the early church, and he remains the patron saint whose name is attached to half the institutions in town.
Medieval Milan was flattened by an emperor, rebuilt, and then run for two centuries by the Visconti and Sforza dukes, who began the cathedral and kept Leonardo on the payroll for engineering as much as for painting. Three hundred years of Spanish and then Austrian rule followed, along with a plague that emptied the city; the nineteenth century brought insurrection, unification and the arcade. The twentieth made Milan Italy's industrial and financial engine - bombed hard in 1943, rebuilt fast, and by the postwar boom the place where the country's money, publishing, advertising, design and eventually its fashion industry all concentrated.
Rome takes the Celtic settlement and renames it Mediolanum
Mediolanum becomes an imperial capital of the Western Roman Empire
The Edict of Milan grants toleration to Christians across the empire
Frederick Barbarossa razes the city; it is rebuilt within a decade
Work begins on the Duomo, which will take some five centuries to finish
Leonardo completes the Last Supper for the Sforza court
Plague guts the population, later immortalised in Italy's most famous novel
La Scala opens on the site of a burnt-out church
The Five Days of Milan drive the Austrians out of the city, briefly
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is completed beside the cathedral
Allied bombing wrecks much of the centre; the Last Supper survives behind sandbags
The Pirelli tower is finished, emblem of the postwar economic miracle
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / F / L
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+39
Mobile network & SIM card
Get an eSIM before you fly
A Italy eSIM installs in minutes and works the moment you switch off flight mode. No SIM swap, no roaming bill.
FAQs about Milan
▸ When is the best time to visit Milan?
March to October is the good stretch, and the two shoulders are the pick: spring and early autumn give warm days, working light and the lakes at their best. Midsummer is fully in season but the city empties around the middle of August, when plenty of restaurants and shops close for the break. From November the plain turns grey and foggy, which suits a city whose best attractions have roofs.
▸ How many days do you need in Milan?
Two full days covers the cathedral and its roof, the Last Supper, one great gallery and an evening on the canals. A third or fourth day lets you slow down and add the cemetery, the contemporary art and a lake or a hill city as a day trip.
▸ Do you need to book the Last Supper in advance?
Yes, and further ahead than feels reasonable - slots are timed, tiny and released in batches, and they go months out. If nothing is left, look at official guided tours that hold their own allocation, and treat any other Leonardo in the city as the consolation prize.
▸ Is Milan worth visiting, or is it just for shopping?
It is a genuine art city that undersells itself: a cathedral like nothing else in Italy, Leonardo's most famous wall, a major picture gallery, Roman and Romanesque churches, and a contemporary scene the rest of the country cannot match. Give it two days and it converts most sceptics.
▸ Is Milan expensive?
It is Italy's priciest city, especially for hotel rooms, and worst of all during the fashion and design fairs when the whole city is booked out. Day to day it is manageable: coffee standing at the bar, a set lunch, a well-chosen aperitivo and a public-transport ticket go a long way.
▸ What should you eat in Milan?
Saffron risotto with bone marrow, a bone-in breaded veal cutlet, ossobuco with gremolata, and cassoeula in cold weather - Lombard cooking runs to butter and rice rather than olive oil and pasta. Add fried panzerotti as street food, a bitter red aperitivo before dinner, and panettone, the domed Christmas cake this city invented.
▸ Is Milan easy to get around?
Very. Five metro lines, an old and extensive tram network, buses and suburban trains all run on one urban ticket, and the historic core is walkable. Driving is the exception: the centre sits inside a camera-enforced access zone, so leave the car outside.
More in Italy
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