It’s with much delay that I put online this travel diary on Milan 😀
If you remember, we were in Turin, which is only 1 hour by train from Milan. So we made the round trip during the day to visit Milan

Part 1: Travel Diary
Part 2: Practical Tips

Part 1: Travel Diary

Train Turin => Milan

We book train tickets the day before on trainline.fr (it’s very convenient, they cover a large part of the trips in Europe too). So for about 50€/person, we can make the return trip during the day with the company italotreno

Even the station is too pretty!
And with its old streetcars, Milan has it all!

Santa Maria Delle Grazie

The first thing we do when we arrive is to take a metro ticket for the day (4,3€/person of memory)
And go right away to the church of Santa Maria Delle Grazie to hope to buy a ticket to see Leonardo da Vinci ‘s Cena (of which we have a copy in the Louvre). Unfortunately, arriving at 9:15 am, it’s already too late. The saleswoman informs us that we should have either booked the tickets in advance or come at 8am (to buy the cancelled tickets)

Italian agencies are booking tickets en masse to force tourists who don’t plan anything (like us) to go through them and pay for a one-day guided tour at 70€. And then they cancel if they don’t have enough customers. Anyway, if we had been admitted, they would have allowed us only 15 minutes of visit

It’s a pity because the church is very pretty

How to get there: metro Cadorna line 2 then 9 minutes on foot ORmetro Conciliazione line 1 then 5 minutes on foot
Official website & info on online ticket booking: https: //legraziemilano.it/il-cenacolo/

Duomo di Milano

Not offended at all, we take the subway again to go see the famous Duomo cathedral

It is all in marble, is very very beautiful. It took 600 years to build it

We buy a fast-track (25€ instead of 16€) so we don’t have to queue in front of the cathedral. By paying more, we get a VIP elevator, without the queue, to go up to the top and have access to the terrace. Those who already have a normal ticket (bought online for example) can pay 9€ more for the wire cutter if they wish. It’s less crowded than usual, but the sun is beating down and the laziness wins me over, so I preferred to opt for the fast-track

Note: those who have the normal ticket can take another elevator, but there is a wait especially in summer

Question: how did they make sure these sculptures (men) didn’t fall down? Seen from above, they look fragile / alone like that

Everything is in marble, it’s impressive, even the roof. You can go around the terrace and go up via a tiny staircase to get a view of all the marble sculptures I showed you at the top. From here, we can see some restaurants with rooftop, which makes us too envious

We go down via the elevator. There is a mass so we can’t visit too much inside

We visit, right next door, a superb shopping mall for luxury brands and overpriced restaurants (for Italy)

There is a Ferrari store next door, the only affordable thing is their cap at 35€ 😀

La Rinascente

We go to the nearby department store La Rinascente, the one with a rooftop for lunch. For 20€/person we go for a very correct lunch with view on the cathedral

Science Museum

We take the metro to go to the Science Museum where they reproduce in miniature version some of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions + some of his paintings. The museum is very vast, there is a part dedicated to ecology, to communication (the old Nokia are now museum pieces). Frankly, I didn’t like this place too much but I don’t know why we spent the whole afternoon there

Full name: Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci
Metro S. Ambrogio line 2
Prices: 10€

Sforza Castle

The Sforza castle has several museums. Those who watch the series “The Borgias” must hear about this name over the 3 seasons

There is a fountain in front of the castle

Admission to the castle is free, but admission to the museums is subject to a fee. Everyone runs here not only for the beauty of the place but especially for the Pietà Museum which houses Michelangelo’s last masterpiece, the Pietà Rondanini

Schedules: Monday to Sunday: winter 07:00 – 18:00; summer 07:00 – 19:00
How to get there: Metro Cairoli Castello line 1
Free admission to the Castle, except Museums (full rate 5.00 euros – reduced rate 3.00 euros for daily admission to all museums).

Pinacoteca de Brera

Before going there, we walk in small and very nice alleys. That makes a little tourist on the other hand 😀

The access to the building is free, then if you want to enter the museum (museum of ancient and modern art), you have to pay for it

How to get there: on foot from the Sforza Castle, or by metro Lanza line 2, metro Montenapoleone line 3

Osteria Mamma Rosa

We end this long day with a dinner at the best osso bucco restaurant in Milan: Osteria Mamma Rosa

Address: Piazza Cincinnato, 4, 20124 Milano MI, Italy
We booked on The Fork the same day (thefork.it)

Well, the presentation is to be reviewed, but the taste is there. Small disappointment for the caramel cream which isn’t top
But the waiters are so kind! The interior is a bit kitsch with paintings of the different emblematic places of Italy

We then take the train and return to Turin, very tired from our day

Conclusion

Transportation in Milan is really great, we were able to use Google Maps for all our trips, whether by streetcar, bus or metro. It’s really great!
Then, I expected something more extraordinary, just the name of Milan evokes something out of the ordinary to me. And I admit I was disappointed by this city whose beauty is very heterogeneous from one neighborhood to another. In any case, I’m glad that I only spent a day there, that I only travelled from Turin (if I had done Paris – Milan – Paris, I think I would have been a little offended)

Then, maybe in one day, I couldn’t discover its little hidden streets. If you have secret addresses, feel free to share them in comment

 

Part 2: Practical Tips

• If hotels in Milan are too expensive, choose a hotel like us in Turin and then take the train to visit Milan in one day
• I advise you to buy a day pass for transportation (4,3€) as you will need it when you arrive. The places are quite far from each other and visiting everything on foot seems to be quite difficult

Budget

• 50€/person for the train (return from Turin)
• 20€ for lunch
• 30€ the dinner
• 4,3€ for the daily transport ticket
• 10€ access to the science museum
• 25€ access to Duomo + elevator (+ other things we didn’t visit in the end oops)

TOTAL : 139,3€/person

I put here the information about the FAST-TRACK, we took the FAST-TRACK A

If you can wait in line, you can buy combined tickets 100m from the cathedral, on the right, at the cathedral museum
or simply online (highly recommended especially in summer)