What to see in Milan

Milan isn’t a city you “do.” It’s compact, you can cross it end to end in half an hour on the metro, and almost everything people come to see sits within a small radius.

The constraint isn’t distance: it’s bookings. One thing in particular — Leonardo’s Last Supper — sells out months ahead, and anyone who finds that out at their hotel doesn’t see it. Which is why the first decision to make isn’t what to see, but what to book.

We’re writing this page from Isola, north of the center. Prices and opening hours were checked in September 2026: they change, so the official website remains the final word.

What to book before you go

The Last Supper is the only genuinely difficult one. Tickets are released in quarterly batches, roughly three months ahead, and they sell out within hours. Every Wednesday at noon the following week’s slots are released: that’s the second chance, for anyone who missed the first.

Entry costs €15, €2 for visitors between 18 and 25, free under 18 — but booking is compulsory for everyone, free entries included. Tickets are sold on the official Cenacolo Vinciano site, which uses Vivaticket.

Everything else can be bought on the day, with variable lines. Booking online is still worth it for the Duomo, where the ticket-office line is the worst part of the visit.

The Duomo and the rooftop terraces

You can see the Duomo from outside without paying anything, and the square is open. The ticket is for entering the church and for going up to the terraces, which are the part that really counts: you walk among the spires, on the roof.

Prices checked in September 2026: around €16 for the terraces alone on foot, around €18 by elevator, and between €22 and €26 for the passes that also cover the cathedral and the museum.

Two things that change your day. You come down on foot either way: the elevator is reserved for visitors with reduced mobility, so the steps down are there for everyone. And in summer the terraces stay open until 10 p.m., with the last ascent at 8:30: going up at sunset is a different visit from going up at midday.

Up-to-date tickets and hours are on the official Duomo site.

The Pinacoteca di Brera

Brera is two different things: the neighborhood, which you walk around without paying anything, and the Pinacoteca, which is one of the most important museums in Italy.

Entry costs €16 full price and €11 reduced for visitors between 18 and 25, free under 18. It’s open Tuesday to Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 7:15 p.m., and on Thursdays until 10:15 p.m.: Thursday evening is when there are fewest people. Closed Mondays.

On the first Sunday of the month entry is free, but you still have to book through Brera Booking. Information and tickets on the official Pinacoteca site.

The Castello Sforzesco

It’s the thing that gives you most for what it costs. The courtyards are free and open every day from 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.: you walk in, cross through and come out the other side into Parco Sempione, with no ticket and no line.

The museums inside cost €5 full price and €3 reduced, on a single ticket valid for all the Castello museums, the Egyptian Gallery included. They’re open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., last admission 4:30, closed Mondays. Free on the first Sunday of the month.

One thing to know before you go: the Sala delle Asse painted by Leonardo is closed for restoration. If that’s why you’re going, check first on milanocastello.it.

The San Siro stadium

The stadium can be visited without a match, on a tour that covers the museum, the Milan and Inter changing rooms, the tunnel and the pitch. There’s also the Skywalk, which takes you walking along the red beams at 55 meters.

Open every day from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in winter and until 6 p.m. in summer. On match days the hours and the route change, so check first on sansirostadium.com.

The Navigli and the Darsena

The Navigli are what remains of a network of navigable canals built from the twelfth century onward to bring goods and stone into Milan, the marble for the Duomo included. Much of it was covered over in the 1930s: what’s still open today are the Naviglio Grande and the Naviglio Pavese, which meet at the Darsena, the city’s old dock.

You get there on the green M2 to Porta Genova. From Isola that’s a change at Garibaldi and then the green line: the full route is in getting around Milan.

What you see is a two-kilometer walk along the water, with balcony houses facing the towpath and open courtyards. The finest thing is the Vicolo dei Lavandai, an eighteenth-century covered wooden wash house left intact on the bank of the Naviglio Grande, where the washerwomen did the laundry until the 1950s.

On the last Sunday of every month there’s the Mercatone dell’Antiquariato antiques market: nearly two kilometers of stalls from viale Gorizia to the via Valenza bridge, with more than 380 traders selling furniture, clocks, silverware, books, prints and mid-century pieces. It’s the day the area is at its best, and it’s also the one day it’s worth going in the morning.

On aperitivo, the comparison we can make is with our own neighborhood. In Isola you drink well in places that stay local, with the people who live there and lower prices, and the choice is described bar by bar in where to eat in Isola. On the Navigli, no other part of Milan has that view over the water, and that alone justifies an evening. The difference is that in Isola you go back; on the Navigli you go once.

CityLife and the three towers

Anyone sleeping in Isola already has the Bosco Verticale and Porta Nuova on the doorstep. CityLife is the other piece of new Milan, on the opposite side of the city, and you reach it on the lilac M5 straight to Tre Torri, with no changes: it’s the only one of Milan’s major sights you can get to from the neighborhood without ever changing line.

Where the towers stand today there was the old Fiera Campionaria trade fair, twenty pavilions demolished from 2005 onward. In their place came a 170,000-square-meter park, an underground shopping center and three skyscrapers that Milanese people named before their owners did.

Il Dritto, the Straight One, is the Isozaki Tower, Allianz’s headquarters: 202 meters, and the tallest building in Italy. Lo Storto, the Twisted One, is the Hadid Tower, Generali’s headquarters: 170 meters over 44 floors, completed in 2017, and the twist isn’t an optical effect but the building’s actual geometry, rotating on itself as it rises. Il Curvo, the Curved One, is the Libeskind Tower, home to PricewaterhouseCoopers, and it’s the shortest of the three.

You can’t go up any of them: they’re offices, and there’s no observation floor open to the public. You look at them from below, from the park, and that’s where they work best.

Which museums to see if you’re short on time

Milan has dozens of museums and anyone staying two days sees two. These are the ones we recommend, and the criterion isn’t fame but the balance between what they cost, what they take out of your day and what they give back.

The Museo del Novecento comes first, and it costs €5. It’s at piazza Duomo 8, meaning inside the loop you’d be walking anyway, it holds around three hundred works by Boccioni, Modigliani, Severini, Klee and Mondrian, and from its windows you look down on the Duomo without paying for the terraces. It’s open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Thursdays until 10:30 p.m., closed Mondays, and entry is free on the first Sunday of the month. An hour and a half is enough to come out satisfied: it’s the museum with the best balance of price, location and time in the entire city.

The Pinacoteca di Brera comes second, and it’s the one worth spending the three hours it asks for. The €16 is justified, and on Thursday evenings, until 10:15 p.m., you can move around without anyone standing in front of the paintings.

The Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia comes third, and it changes audience completely: €10 full price and €7.50 reduced for visitors aged 3 to 26 and over 65, at via San Vittore 21, Sant’Ambrogio stop on the M2. It’s 50,000 square meters, the largest technical museum in Italy, with galleries devoted to Leonardo and around 170 historic models of his machines. It’s open Tuesday to Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on weekends until 6:30 p.m., closed Mondays. With children it’s the best half day Milan can offer; without children, and with only one day, it comes after the other two.

The Fondazione Prada is the choice for anyone who follows contemporary art, and it has one quirk worth knowing: it’s closed on Tuesdays but open on Mondays, which is exactly the day almost every museum in Milan closes. The ticket costs €15 full price and €12 reduced for under-26s and over-65s, and it also covers the Osservatorio in the Galleria within thirty days. It’s at largo Isarco 2, Lodi T.I.B.B. stop on the M3.

The others — Gallerie d’Italia, Triennale, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, GAM — are good museums that only miss out for reasons of time. If you have more than three days, they start to come in.

How many days you need for Milan

Two full days are enough for the center and one area outside it. Three let you add a day without rushing. One day is doable, but you have to decide in advance what you’re leaving out.

The three plans below start from Isola and account for real travel, meaning line changes rather than distance on a map. Lines and tickets are in getting around Milan.

One day

Early morning at the Duomo, which is the part to do while the square is still empty: terraces first, cathedral after. Then the Museo del Novecento, in the same square, which asks for an hour and a half at €5. Lunch nearby, then on foot toward the Castello Sforzesco by way of Brera: the Castello courtyards are free and you walk through them and out into Parco Sempione. Back to Isola on the M2 from Cadorna or Lanza, changing at Garibaldi.

If it’s a Monday, the Museo del Novecento is closed: in its place, the walk through Brera, which costs nothing.

Two days

The first day is the one above. For the second you choose between two opposite directions.

The art direction is the Pinacoteca di Brera in the morning, three hours, and the Navigli in the afternoon, on the direct M2 from Lanza to Porta Genova. If the second day falls on the last Sunday of the month, do the Navigli in the morning for the antiques market and move Brera to the afternoon.

The new-city direction is CityLife in the morning, on the direct M5 from Isola to Tre Torri, and Porta Nuova and the Bosco Verticale in the afternoon, which are walkable from Isola. It’s the cheapest day of all, because there’s no ticket to pay.

Three days

With three days the Last Supper comes in, which has to be booked months ahead and which shapes the rest of the plan: you build the day around the slot you managed to get, not the other way around. It’s in Santa Maria delle Grazie, near Sant’Ambrogio, so the same day pairs well with the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia, two hundred meters away.

Alternatively, the third day is the one for the Fondazione Prada and the south of the city, or for the San Siro tour if the stadium interests you more than the museums — and with the construction under way, that’s a visit with an expiry date.