I am flying into Milan’s Linate airport on a Thursday morning and am trying to figure out how much time i should expect it to take to get through customs and passport control. Once I figure that out, I can then book my train tickets. We will be taking the train to Venice for our first night. What does timing look like to get from the airport to the central train station? Any help will be much appreciated.
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16133 posts
Where is your flight from? If your flight is coming to Linate from a Schengen zone city there will be no passport control. The biggest unknown is whether the plane arrives on time.
A taxi can get you to Milano Centrale in 15-20 minutes.
Posted by
Gettysburg PA
7225 posts
There is just no way to predict how long passport control and luggage will take. Customs is just a walk thru correct door- no time spent there.
Actually - where are you flying from? Will this be your first stop in Schengen or will you be arriving from another Schengen country where you wil already have gone thru Passport Control?
No way to know if your flight will be on time either- they are often delayed.
It's about 20 min taxi from Linate to Milano Centrale
Always best to wait til you land to book that ongoing ticket unless you are OK losing the money if you miss it.
There are multiple trains each day from Milan to Venice with Trenitialia and ItaloTreno.
Download both apps and book your tickets once you land and can see which train you will be able to catch
Posted by
Chicago
8178 posts
Buy the ticket after you arrive Milan Linate using a mobile device if you have Internet access. Otherwise wait until you get to the train station Milano Centrale where there are machines where you can buy it.
Posted by
OP
4 posts
We are flying Chicago to Dublin to milan. I was told that we would not need to go through passport control in Dublin as we are just changing planes. I hope that is correct, as our layover isn’t very long. After Venice we are going on to a couple additional cities, Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre then back to Milan. Are there any trains we should book in advance? .
Posted by
Chicago
8178 posts
You'd benefit from booking everything else after Venice in advance but Milan to Venice is a gamble you might lose. All of my flights my last trips from and to Dublin were delayed.
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
11946 posts
I will ask the elephant in the room question, why not fly to Venice? (ORD-DUB-VCE)
Posted by
OP
4 posts
We arrive in Milan on 9/12/24. We chose to go there as the tickets were a lot cheaper than flying into Venice and we will end our trip with a full day in Milan for my fashionista daughter. Our flight is scheduled to arrive at 1030am. So I was hoping to take an early afternoon train to Venice.
Posted by
San Diego, California
5648 posts
Just a note, but flying into Venice is getting MUCH more expensive than flying into Milan. I have no theories, I have just been following the fares for quite awhile.
Safe travels.
Posted by
Gettysburg PA
7225 posts
Good rule of thumb is to expect or plan on catching on onward train 3-4 hours after flight is due to land.
However I STILL would not purchase those tickets til I actually landed in Italy.
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16133 posts
By purchasing in advance at most you save about 15€ per person. It’s up to you to decide if that is worth the risk of losing it all.