Hello.
I have a plane ticket to Malpensa Milan to stay 9 nights. I am travelling with a little kid (3 years old) so I have some special needs, like not travelling too far away from the airport for the first and last place of the trip (max 1 hour) and to sleep in 3 different places at most. Also, I need to have a pause to give her lunch/sleep at my airbnb in the middle of day, so no large day trips too. My idea would be to stay some days in Milan and then go to Lake Como. What do you thing? Any other ideas?
Thank you very much!
Posted by
Bend, Oregon
2312 posts
Central Milan is within an hour of Malpensa. Are you looking for a 3rd location, aside from central Milan and Lake Como?
You might consider Lake Maggiore. There’s a bus that takes 45 minutes to get to Stresa. Then continue to Lake Como, then end in Milan.
Posted by
11156 posts
Lake Maggiore is very near Malpensa, especially the nice town of Ranco on the SÉ coast.
Lake Como is farther away but very special too.
Posted by
Saint Paul, Minnesota
1388 posts
We took our 3-year-old grandson to Italy (and his parents and baby sister, who is now 4) for 2.5 weeks. So, I'm thinking about what he loved about being in Italy then and where I would take her right now.
My thought is to land at MXP, take the bus to the train station in Milan, and take the fast train to Venice, a 2.5 hour trip. Just stay in Venice the entire time, in an apartment in a quiet area away from San Marco and the Rialto bridge, ideally one with a large piazza, park, or wide street nearby to run around in. Buy a pass for the vaporetto. No day trips, no changes of location. Easy.
I think your child would be enchanted by the total lack of traffic, by the boats, by the bridges, by just how different everything is is Venice. If your child gets up early, like our grandchildren do, go visit San Marco square then, and avoid the crowds. You yourself will be able to enjoy a lot of things in Venice without even going into museums or art galleries and will have maximum flexibility about nap times. Consider not taking a stroller at all, or if you need one for airports and train stations, take the smallest and lightest weight one you can.
The day before your flight, train back to Milan and stay in a hotel very near the train station (like the Hotel Berna) or at an airport hotel. Milan (where we've been several times) does not strike me as a child-friendly city, and not very walkable, but your child might like being up on the roof of the cathedral.
We've never been to any of the Italian lakes, so I don't know if visiting them might have some of the great features (like no motor vehicles) Venice does and they are closer. However, I just looked up the time it would take to get to Varenna from MXP by two trains+bus+ferry and it's pretty comparable to the time it would take to go to Venice, plus being more complicated.