Why now
Good time in October: 19°C days, 13 rainy days, fares below average.
The city runs to a calendar of fairs, design week and fashion weeks that fill hotels without warning, so check the Fiera schedule before choosing dates. August is empty and half-shut; late autumn is grey, foggy and very much itself.
Best months here: April, June, September. October is not one of them — the label above measures the month against a fixed bar, not against the rest of the year here. Daytime highs, sea temperature and rainy days from three years of Open-Meteo reanalysis; a rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, which is the WMO threshold and not the same as "it drizzled".
The place
Milan is Italy's working city: finance, fashion, design and a metro that runs on time, with a Gothic cathedral and a Leonardo in the middle of it. It suits people who like cities for what they do rather than how they look, and who eat and drink well; it disappoints anyone expecting Florence with trams.
What you can do
- 01Book the Last Supper weeks ahead at Santa Maria delle Grazie, then walk to Sant'Ambrogio's Romanesque basilica.
- 02Climb to the Duomo's roof terraces among the spires, then see the Pietà Rondanini at Castello Sforzesco.
- 03Eat risotto alla milanese and cotoletta in a trattoria, and take aperitivo along the Naviglio Grande.
- 04See the Fondazione Prada in a converted distillery and the Pirelli HangarBicocca's Kiefer towers on the northern edge.
- 05Visit the Cimitero Monumentale for its sculpture, then the Brera gallery for Mantegna's Dead Christ and Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus.
Where to stay · neighbourhoods
Stay in Brera, around Porta Romana or near Garibaldi for a first visit; the streets around Centrale station are convenient and charmless.
Unusual things
- ◦San Bernardino alle Ossa, a chapel off Piazza Santo Stefano lined floor to ceiling with human bones.
- ◦Villa Necchi Campiglio, a 1930s house by Piero Portaluppi with its furnishings, pool and garden intact, run by FAI.
- ◦The Vigna di Leonardo, the vineyard given to Leonardo in 1498, replanted in the garden of the Casa degli Atellani opposite the Last Supper.
Day trips
Flight options
Routes come from OpenFlights (historical) and a 2026 route reference compiled from public timetables. Durations are the published schedule where we have it, otherwise a block-time model fitted on measured nonstop flights. Verify schedules with the airline before booking.
Entry requirements · IT passport
Source: passport-index-data, March 2026 (coarse indicator), covering 258 of our 268 destinations for each of 199 passports. Always confirm with the destination's official site.
Airports
Distances are centre to airport derived · nonstop counts are our route reference for 2026, not every flight that exists.
Local transport
- Airport to city
- Malpensa Express, 50 min, €13
- Car needed?
- No — walkable or good public transport
- Getting around
- Four metro lines and the trams cover the city; the Malpensa Express runs to Cadorna and Centrale in 40 to 50 minutes, and Linate is on metro line 4.
- Clock
- 1 hour ahead of Lisbon (Europe/Rome) derived
- Daylight
- 11 hours of daylight in October · sunrise 07:38, sunset 18:40 derived
- Currency
- EUR
Good to know
During fashion and design weeks rooms are scarce, and pickpockets work the Duomo metro and the Centrale concourse.
Alternatives at a similar price
Whole trip per person for 3 days from Lisbon in October, then the flight time; estimates, like the total above.
Athens
Malta
Tenerife
Menorca
Lampedusa
Kos