8 Best Things to Do in Milan (2026): Top Sights & Tips

Italy’s style-and-finance capital rewards more than a shopping stop — gothic spires, Da Vinci’s Last Supper and canal-side nightlife. Here are the best things to do.

The 8 best things to do in Milan

Suggested itinerary

Day 1: Duomo + rooftop, Galleria, Sforza Castle, Navigli aperitivo. Day 2: Last Supper, Brera, or a Lake Como day trip.

Tips for visiting Milan

• Book Last Supper tickets well in advance — they sell out
• Do aperitivo in Navigli — a drink comes with a generous buffet
• Trains from Centrale reach Lake Como, Venice and beyond fast

The Navigli aperitivo trap and a free masterpiece nobody visits

A drink by the Naviglio Grande at dusk is genuinely lovely, but the canalside strip is built to separate tourists from cash. The giveaway is the apericena buffet: a €15 cocktail that comes with a help-yourself spread of pasta and arancini that’s been sitting under a lamp since six. Milanese drinkers abandoned that model years ago. The good places are tucked one street back. MAG Café, just off the Naviglio Grande, pours serious cocktails with a proper aperitivo plate for around €12, and it isn’t shouting at passers-by to come in.

The secret most visitors skip entirely is the Cimitero Monumentale near Porta Garibaldi. It’s an open-air museum of Liberty-style and Art Nouveau tombs, sculpture you’d pay to see in a gallery, and admission is completely free. It’s open Tuesday to Sunday, roughly 8am to 6pm, and closed Mondays.

• A single ATM ticket is €2.20 and stays valid 90 minutes across metro, tram and bus, so hopping between Navigli, the Duomo and the cemetery on one ticket is easy.

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How to actually book Last Supper tickets (and why most people fail)

Leonardo’s Last Supper is the one Milan attraction you cannot wing. The mural lives in the refectory beside Santa Maria delle Grazie, and the museum admits visitors in strict 15-minute windows, in small groups. There is zero walk-up capacity and tickets routinely vanish within hours of release.

Book only through the official seller, lastsupper.shop (run by Vivaticket for the Cenacolo Vinciano). The standard adult ticket is 15 euros; ages 18-25 pay just 2 euros, and under-18s are free but still need a reservation. Avoid third-party resellers charging 40-60 euros for the same slot bundled with a throwaway “tour.”

The catch is the release calendar. Tickets drop in quarterly batches roughly three months ahead, so check the official site for the exact opening date and time of the block covering your travel dates. If a date shows sold out, check back every Wednesday at 12:00 Italian time, when the museum releases the following week’s remaining stock (returns and group cancellations).

• Set a calendar alarm for the release date and buy the instant the block opens.
• Arrive 30 minutes early at the ticket office with photo ID matching the booking, then go to the entrance 15 minutes before your slot.
• Closed Mondays; open Tuesday-Sunday 8:15-19:00, last entry 18:45.

Getting from Milan’s three airports into the centre

Milan is served by three airports, and picking the wrong transfer can cost you an hour and 90 euros. Here is what each actually involves in 2026.

• Linate (LIN) is the closest, 7 km out. The new M4 metro runs straight from the terminal to San Babila in 12-15 minutes on a standard 2.20 euro city ticket. This is the single best-value transfer in Milan; skip the taxis entirely.
• Malpensa (MXP) is the long-haul hub, about 50 km northwest. Take the Malpensa Express train to Centrale, Garibaldi, or Cadorna in 38-54 minutes for 15 euros one-way. The Terravision bus to Centrale is cheaper (from around 5-10 euros) but takes around 50 minutes. A taxi runs a fixed 95-105 euros.
• Bergamo (BGY), used by Ryanair and budget carriers, is 45 km out with no train. Shuttle buses such as the Orio Shuttle run to Milano Centrale every 20-30 minutes, take 50-60 minutes, and cost from about 8-10 euros.

If you land at Linate, buy your 2.20 euro ticket from the ATM machines or tap a contactless card at the gates and ride in like a local. For Malpensa, prebook the Express online to lock the fare. Both Malpensa and Bergamo buses terminate at Milano Centrale, where you connect to the M2/M3 metro.

The Duomo rooftop: stairs, lift, and which ticket to buy

Standing on the marble roof terraces of the Duomo, threading between Gothic spires with the Alps on a clear day behind you, is the best view in the city, and the ticketing is more confusing than it should be. The key choice is stairs versus lift, because the price gap is real and the lift only gets you partway.

• Rooftop only: 16 euros by stairs (around 250 steps), 18 euros by lift.
• Combo (rooftop + cathedral interior + archaeological area + Duomo Museum): 22 euros by stairs, 26 euros by lift.
• Fast-Track lift passes run roughly 26-28 euros and skip the long ground-floor queues.

Important reality check on the lift: it only reaches the first level. To get up to the highest terrace you climb stairs regardless, so unless you have mobility needs, the stairs ticket is the smarter buy and the climb is genuinely easy.

Two more things that trip people up. First, the Duomo enforces a dress code: shoulders and knees must be covered, no exceptions, so leave the tank tops and short shorts at the hotel (a scarf solves it in summer). Second, prebook a timed slot online during summer; the standby line in Piazza del Duomo regularly tops an hour in July and August.

Written by

John Morrison

John Morrison is the founder and lead travel writer at Packzup. Over the past decade he has explored destinations across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania — always self-funded, never on a press trip.