Adding Milan to the Best of Venice, Florence and Rome in 10 Days Tour?

To give you better advice on air travel I would need to know which airline mileage you are using (United?) and which airport is your home airport.

The reason why you need to spend a night in Dusseldorf is probably because your flight from Rome FCO to DUS is too late in the morning to make it on time for the flight from DUS to wherever you are going in North America (is it Air Berlin?).

If that is the case, I would look into staying in Rome an extra night and depart (if possible) with an earlier flight the next morning so that you can catch a flight in DUS that day and don't need to stay overnight in DUS. Nothing against Dusseldorf, but I'd rather stay in extra night in Rome than Dusseldorf.

If you go back to Milan on 11/30 late morning, you won't have time to see much in Milan (not that there is much to see in Milan anyhow). Also the trip from Rome to Milan is a waste of time and money. The travel time is about 3 hours and the train ticket is rather expensive too, unless you secure a discounted ticket online. Even if you don't have the option of flying out of Rome a day later (therefore avoiding a night in Dusseldorf), I think that spending a night in Milan is just as bad as spending it in Dusseldorf. Both aren't exactly the prettiest cities in Europe, but between the two I would rather spend the night in Dusseldorf, at least that way the next day I'm slightly closer to home and I only have one non stop leg to fly: from DUS to North America.

I love Milano but Roberto's logistics advice is excellent.

Thanks for your replies. There aren't any flights the next day that go thru Dusseldorf on our airline. They all go thru Heathrow and the taxes on the tickets are 7 times more expensive (over $700 each vs around $100 each). Our flight would be from Rome to Dusseldorf in the evening and then an early morning flight from Dusseldorf back to the east coast so we, unfortunately, can't stay in Rome that night. I was worried that it wouldn't be worth going thru Milan even though the flights are more direct and even cheaper than the ones to Venice and from Rome but I figured I'd see if anyone out there thought there was something worth seeing in the afternoon and evening we would have there. I'll keep checking for more flight options but usually the flights get worse as far as mileage seats are concerned and the savings is too great to entertain paying full-proce for tickets. We will be paying $220 round trip total for both of us using milage. Even with adding the hotel in Dusseldorf we have a great deal that, to us, is worth longer flight times and more connections.

Isarkisi
We did the RS Venice-Florence-Rome tour in 2012, flying into Milan and out of Rome. I would strongly recommend that that if you can, arrive at least one, maybe two days before the tour starts, whether you fly into Milan or Venice. If you fly in the day of the tour, take a train, to Venice, find your hotel, then join your group for the long pre-tour meeting and leisurely first dinner - you will be totally exhausted. We saw people who did that nodding off all through dinner. We came in three days early, and went to Lake Como with one night in Milan to see the Last Supper. Much better. We had beat our jet lag before tour started, and were raring to go. Even if you just do a extra night in Venice before tour, would be good idea.

So that doesn't necessarily answer your question, but is worth considering, as it may make your options better.

I have certainly enjoyed Milan for a day on a couple of different occasions, but think you should make it easy on yourself by flight directly to and from the cities you need. One night in Dusseldorf (without significant train travel) sounds better than a day in Milan with two train rides.