Although there are three major airports in the vicinity of Milan, if you fly from abroad, then with a high degree of probability you will land in Malpensa. Malpensa Airport is the second largest in Italy and in terms of passenger traffic served one-on-one goes with the country's largest airport named after Leonardo da Vinci in Rome. Although Malpensa Airport is located almost 50 kilometers from the city, thanks to the developed transport infrastructure, getting from it to the center of Milan does not seem to be a problem.
Milan, although it is the main business hub in northern Italy, is still not very popular with tourists. By the number of tourist attractions, the city is inferior to such monsters of Italian tourism as Rome, Florence and Venice.
Thus, many of those arriving in Malpensa do not burden themselves with visiting the city and choose roads that bypass Milan. If you belong to this glorious cohort of travelers, you can safely skip this post, because our goal today is to get to Milan.
Malpensa Express
As the name implies, the Malpensa Airport operates a railway route, using the services of which you can easily get into the city.
Malpensa Express travels from the airport to the center of Milan in 40-50 minutes, depending on the destination of the trip and the number of intermediate stops. Trains run almost around the clock, 7 days a week, with the exception of a short daily break between 1:30 and 5:30.
Malpensa Express train at the airport station
As of the beginning of 2019, a one-way ticket from Malpensa Airport to the station Milano centrale cost 13 euros for a one way ticket. Regardless of whether you purchase a one-way ticket or 2, do not forget to stamp it before boarding the train.
You can buy tickets for Malpensa Express at the box office at the station. The only “But” is that the ticket office is open from 5:30 in the morning until 00:20 on weekdays and on a shorter schedule on holidays and weekends. If the ticket office does not work upon your arrival, you can use the option to purchase a ticket through the machine.
Milano Centrale Station is conveniently located in the city center
Also note that Malpensa Express trains leave for several stations in Milan, and the latter may not be on the same line. Thus, it always makes sense to double-check whether the train is going exactly where you need it. Otherwise, having arrived at the terminal station, you will have to use the metro to correct your mistake. Of course, this is not the end of the world, but still an obstacle that can be avoided.
From Malpensa to Milan by bus
From Malpensa Airport you can get by bus not only to Milan, but also to many other points on the map of Italy (and not only Italy). The total number of destinations is about 20 and includes Turin, Genoa, Bergamo, Verona and many others. Directly to Milan from Malpensa are several routes.
Bus stop at Malpensa Airport
The most profitable of them are buses of the famous European low-cost airline - the Terravision company. When booking an online one-way ticket, it will cost you only 8 Euros for an adult and 5 Euros for a child from 5 to 12 years old (children under 5 travel for free). Thus, to get from Malpensa airport to the center of Milan by bus almost 2 times more profitablethan on the express.
Buses depart from special stops at the exit of T1 and T2 terminals and follow to the main train station in the center of Milan - Centrale station. During working hours, buses leave approximately every 20 minutes. Travel time is about 50 minutes.
The first flight from the airport leaves at 5:05 in the morning, the last at 00:10 in the night. When traveling from the city to the airport, the first flight leaves the stop at the Central station at 3:50 in the morning, the last - at 21:55 in the evening.
You can buy tickets in advance both one way or both. At the same time, the purchase of round-trip tickets is even cheaper in advance (14, rather than 16 Euros).
In 2016, going to Rome, BlogoItaliano tried out a service on a similar route from Fiumicino Airport, after buying tickets through the website. The whole process was recorded on video, and we present it here. When buying tickets online, do not forget to print them - when boarding the bus, only a printed version of the ticket is accepted. The company's website, where you can get more details about the route, as well as book your tickets, is here.
By the way, you can also get from Malpensa to another airport in Milan - Linatewith which regular bus service is established.
Helpful advice: When going to Milan, be sure to download an audio city guide from BlogoItaliano for iPhone link. The full version works even without the Internet, makes it easy to navigate in the city via GPS and contains a ready-made audio tour of the most interesting places in Milan. And all this is much cheaper than even the most budget tours.
Taxi from Malpensa Airport to Milan
Although there are still taxi drivers in Milan who are not averse to “warming up their hands” on tourists who first arrived in Italy, there is an effective way not to get into trouble with the “extra fare”. One of the most effective alternatives is to call a taxi via the Internet exactly in time for the expected arrival of the flight to Malpensa Airport. Catching a taxi at the terminal is also quite realistic, but with this option, all the risks are transferred to the passenger.
With the development of online, the use of order taxi from Malpensa airport to Milan over the Internet has become mega-popular among travelers. And the point is not only in the risks of "running into" an overestimated tariff, as is often the case in Russia or Ukraine. There is another reason: most local drivers do not speak other languages than Italian.
When ordering a taxi via the Internet - all these risks are leveled. The passenger must specify the details of his flight, the final destination of the trip, special requirements for cars, if any (seats for children, a large amount of luggage, etc.), and the online service will instantly calculate both the corresponding fare and the estimated travel time.
Online taxi drivers meet passengers at the exit of the arrivals area
Thus, by the way, you can calculate the travel time without ordering a taxi itself, since the service calculates the cost and time of the transfer from Malpensa Airport to Milan (and many more cities in the vicinity) even without the passenger’s personal data.
Ordering a taxi via the Internet is also convenient because it allows you not to worry about the delay or transfer of the flight. The company providing the service independently monitors the airport information board and is notified in advance of all changes in the schedule. For passengers, this is convenient in that there is no additional charge for waiting for a client.
The meeting of passengers with the driver is also worked out to be automatic and takes place at the exit from the arrivals area. It’s easy to identify your driver by the nameplate on the reservation he is holding. It’s impossible to miss each other.
In more detail, BlogoItaliano devoted a separate article to all the nuances of the service, and you can make an order for a taxi online from Malpensa airport or simply calculate the estimated transfer costs depending on the end point of the trip here.
Another taxi service from Milan Airport (added in 2016)
When BlogoItaliano wrote this article, the choice of taxi services from Milan Airport left much to be desired. Yes, we found one, but there was nothing special to compare.
But times are changing: from 2013, you can also order a taxi from Malpensa airport to your hotel through the KiwiTaxi service. We will not talk about tariffs now - they tend to change over time - but at the time of writing this article, the service had at least 3 strong advantages: a more convenient interface than the previous one, the presence of the Russian version and Russian-speaking support. In the screenshot below you can see the current taxi tariffs at the time of writing, but, of course, it always makes sense to check them separately on the service website - prices do not stand still and can vary both in the direction of increase and decrease.
Compare, choose and travel cheaper.
Car hire at Milan Airport
At the airport in Milan, all the major international companies offering car rental services are presented, and therefore, for traveling around the country of Malpensa, it can be considered an ideal starting point. Perhaps the only exception is if you plan to spend your vacation in Milan (which happens quite rarely) or Venice (which happens much more often). For movement around the city itself, it makes more sense to use a well-developed public transport network or taxi.
You can rent a car at the Milan airport either in the terminal itself or in advance via the Internet. The easiest and cheapest way to do this is to use the popular international rental car comparison service Rentalcars, developed by the creators of the equally popular Booking.com. The main advantage of the service is a powerful system for comparing rental conditions, which makes it easy to find profitable offers among hundreds of options offered by car rental companies.
For example, BlogoItaliano tried to hammer in a car rental search for a period of 10 days. The cheapest option found by the system pleased - a little over 13 Euro per day:
Car rental at Milan Airport starts from 13 Euro per day
If you wish, you can take something more spacious or colorful: it will come out a bit more expensive, but also within the reasonable framework.
By the way, if you are seriously focused on autotrip, we also recommend our article Car rental in Italy: 5 most useful sites for autotrip.
Infographic: Transport from Malpensa Airport to the city
To make it easier for you to navigate all the options for getting from Malpensa Airport to Milan, BlogoItaliano has summarized them as an infographic.
All ways to get from Malpensa airport to Milan: infographics
Save yourself so as not to lose and share with friends :)
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Photo by lorenzaccio *
