Milan takes two days. Lake Como takes the third.
Which Last Supper slot you can still get. What the Bellagio boat day really costs. Whether the Duomo terraces are worth the climb before or after lunch. Reviews of every tour you can book in Milan and the lakes behind it.
A cathedral roof, a fresco on a timer, a canal at aperitivo hour.
The five bookings a first Milan trip is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningCathedral and Duomo’s Terraces Entrance TicketCathedral and terraces on one ticket. Go up early, while the marble is still in shade and the queue is short.
02The one on a timerGuided Walking Tour & Last Supper Visit with TicketFifteen minutes in front of the fresco, in a group of thirty five. The slot decides the day, so book it before anything else.
03The lake dayComo & Bellagio with Private Lake Como CruiseComo and Bellagio with the crossing done by private boat rather than the public ferry. The day everyone books a train ticket back for.
04The eveningSunset Navigli Food & Drinks Tour by Do Eat BetterThe Naviglio Grande on foot at dusk, stopping where the bars along both towpaths put their stools out. Aperitivo counts as dinner here.
05The alpine dayBernina Red Train, Swiss Alps & St Moritz From MilanA red train over the Bernina pass into Switzerland and back. Long, and the only Milan day out that ends above the snow line.
The cathedral is the ticket everyone gets wrong.
Everything at the Duomo →
There are three separate things here: the nave, the rooftop terraces, and the archaeological floor under the square. They are sold together, apart and in half a dozen combinations, and the terraces are the part worth paying for. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Stairs or lift to the terraces
You walk out among the spires and the flying buttresses with the Alps behind them on a clear day. Stairs cost less than the lift and take about ten minutes. Choose a slot late in the day and the marble turns the colour of the light.
The Last Supper, fifteen minutes
Santa Maria delle Grazie admits small groups for a quarter of an hour at a time, and the whole day is built around whatever slot you get. Most tours fold it into a walk that fills the hours either side.
La Scala, without buying a seat
The museum takes you into a box overlooking the auditorium, unless the stage is in rehearsal, which happens often. Ask before you pay if the auditorium is the reason you are going.
Public ferry, private hull, or the island hop. Pick the boat.
Almost every Milan day trip ends on a deck somewhere. Three ways to spend it, what it costs to board each one, and which lake it belongs to.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · Como & Bellagio with Private Lake Como Cruise
Como and BellagioTrain to the lake, then the crossing between the three towns.
A hull to yourselvesYour own boat and driver on Como, by the hour or the day.
The Borromean islandsStresa to Bella, Pescatori and Madre, off and on all day.
Garda and SirmioneThe warm south end, a castle on a spit, a short cruise round it.
All 271 days on the water →
Lake Como is three towns and the water between them.
Como at the southern tip is where the train arrives; Bellagio sits on the point where the lake splits; Varenna faces it across the water with the ferry running all day. Almost every tour is some arrangement of those three, and the only real question is whether you cross by public ferry or by hired boat.
- 1Como & Bellagio with Private Lake Como Cruisefrom $112
- 2Lake Como & Bellagio DayTour with Private Cruisefrom $111
- 3Lake Como & Bellagio Day Trip with Private Boat Cruisefrom $120
Six places the Milan trains reach before lunch.
Como and its ferry piers, Garda and its warm south shore, an upper town on a hill at Bergamo, the Borromean islands on Maggiore, Brescia's Roman forum, and the ducal squares of Mantua. Each one is a day, and each one has a best way to do it.
The days out most travellers book in Milan.
Every Milan tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else here, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Cathedral and Duomo’s Terraces Entrance Ticket
Walk Milan’s Duomo terraces, cathedral, museum, and St. Gottardo in Corte with a flexible 48-hour ticket and optional audio guide.
From · $30
Read our review →
2
Como & Bellagio with Private Lake Como Cruise
from $112
3
City Sightseeing Hop-On Hop-Off Bus with Audio Guide
from $26
4
Duomo Terraces Ticket (No Church Access)
from $22
5
Milan Cathedral Direct Entrance – Terrace Excluded
from $13
6
Guided Walking Tour & Last Supper Visit with Ticket
from $101
7
Fast-Track Milan Cathedral and Terraces Guided Tour
from $46
8
Navigli Canal Boat Cruise
from $25
Four Milan bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on entry slots, rehearsal calendars and a Swiss railway timetable that has no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Guided Walking Tour & Last Supper Visit with TicketGroups of about thirty five go in for fifteen minutes at a time, so the day's capacity is tiny. Slots are released in blocks and the good hours go immediately.
- 02Cathedral and Duomo’s Terraces Entrance TicketRooftop entry is timed and the late-afternoon slots, the ones with the light, are the first to close.
- 03Bernina Red Train, Swiss Alps & St Moritz From MilanThe panoramic cars run to a Swiss timetable with reserved seats and one useful return each afternoon. Miss it and there is no later train.
- 04Milan’s Must See: Half-Day Tour of Last Supper, Duomo & La ScalaThe auditorium is only open when nothing is being rehearsed on the stage below, and the calendar is set weeks out.
Milan eats late, drinks early, and charges for neither.
Aperitivo here means a drink that arrives with enough food to skip dinner, and it starts around six. Before that: a pasta class in somebody's kitchen, a street food walk through Porta Romana, a tasting in an urban winery under a block of flats.
Milan keeps its best rooms behind doors you have to book.
A refectory with one wall painted on it, a castle the Sforzas built and Michelangelo died working inside, six tiers of red velvet at La Scala, and the Brera galleries above an art school. None of it is visible from the street, and most of it closes on Mondays.
Every museum and gallery visit →
What a day out from Milan actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A cathedral roof, a canal cruise and most of the walking tours land under the price of dinner in Brera.
Cathedral and museum entries, canal cruises, walking tours and the short guided hours around the centre.
The full days: Como and Bellagio by boat, Garda and Sirmione, cooking classes, the Bernina train.
Private guides, chartered boats on Como, supercar laps and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Monday closes half of Milan. Plan the day around it.
The Last Supper, Brera, the Sforza Castle museums and most of the smaller collections all shut on Mondays. The cathedral and its terraces do not, and neither does anything with a kitchen, a canal or a lake ferry in it. Save the indoor art for a Tuesday and spend the Monday eating, walking or getting on a boat.
Three things that only happen in Milan.
Cathedrals and opera houses exist everywhere. A roof you are allowed to walk across, a mural that has been slowly leaving the wall for five hundred years, and a theatre that decides the careers of singers do not.
The Last Supper
Leonardo painted it onto dry plaster instead of wet, which is why it began flaking within his lifetime and why the room is now climate controlled. Visitors go through an airlock in small groups and get fifteen minutes. Tickets are released in blocks and disappear the same week; if the official window is gone, a guided tour is usually holding the last of them.
- 1Guided Walking Tour & Last Supper Visit with Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,409 reviews
- 2Milan’s Must See: Half-Day Tour of Last Supper, Duomo & La Scala★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 4,193 reviews
- 3Last Supper Guided Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,854 reviews
The Duomo Terraces
Most cathedrals let you climb a tower. This one lets you walk the roof. Stairs and a lift both come out among the pinnacles, and you can cross the whole length of the building between the flying buttresses with the square a hundred and fifty feet below. Every one of the statues up here was carved to be seen from where you are standing, not from the ground.
- 1Cathedral and Duomo’s Terraces Entrance Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 61,054 reviews
- 2Duomo Terraces Ticket (No Church Access)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 6,111 reviews
- 3Fast-Track Milan Cathedral and Terraces Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,240 reviews
Teatro alla Scala
The house opened in 1778 on the site of a demolished church and has been the room Italian opera is judged in ever since. The museum next door holds Verdi's instruments and a wall of casts, and the visit ends in a box looking down at the stalls. Rehearsals close the auditorium without warning, which is the one thing worth checking on the morning.
- 1Milan’s Must See: Half-Day Tour of Last Supper, Duomo & La Scala★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 4,193 reviews
- 2La Scala Theater & Museum Guided Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 2,931 reviews
- 3La Scala Theater and Museum Tour with Entry Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,722 reviews
By place — the city and the lakes
By kind of day — roof, refectory, kitchen or lake
Duomo, refectory, canal, lake: the four days almost everybody does first.
The Duomo
The Last Supper
The Bernina trainThe newest Milan tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Food Tour with Pasta, Pizza, Cannoli, and Tiramisu!
Read our review →
Walking Tour in Lake Como with Lierna Cooking Class
Read our review →
Private Wine Tasting in Bellagio with Chef Luigi Gandola
Read our review →
The art of the Italian Aperitivo with a local: Learn & Enjoy in Milan
Read our review →
Skip-the-line Duomo Cathedral Private Tour & Rooftop Access
Read our review →
