Day Trips & Nearby

⭐ Milan's best feature as a base is the railway

More of Italy is within an hour of Milan than of anywhere else in the country, and most of the trips below run from Centrale or Cadorna on ordinary regional tickets rather than reservations.

The four under an hour

• Como — around forty minutes, and the train from Cadorna arrives at Como Nord Lago, which is on the waterfront rather than a walk from it. ⭐ Take the funicular up to Brunate for the view back down the lake.
• Bergamo — around fifty minutes, then a funicular up to the Città Alta, a walled Venetian hill town that most people only ever see the airport of.
• Pavia — about half an hour, for a covered medieval bridge and the Certosa, a Carthusian monastery a few kilometres outside the town that is one of the most extravagant buildings in Lombardy.
• Monza — about fifteen minutes, for an enormous park, a royal villa and the iron crown in the cathedral treasury.

The longer ones

• Lake Maggiore and Stresa, about an hour, with boats out to the Borromean islands. A full day and worth it.
• Turin, about an hour by high-speed train — a different city entirely, with arcades, the Egyptian museum and better chocolate.
• Verona, about an hour and twenty. ⚠️ Venice at two and a half hours each way is a long day and it deserves longer.

⚠️ Before you go

Regional trains use a different ticket from the high-speed ones, and the high-speed services are sold by two competing companies — check both.

Validate a regional paper ticket before boarding if it is not already time- stamped; the machines are on the platform and the fine for not doing it is real.

Journey times above are approximate and vary at weekends. Confirm on the day.