Milan to Venice- When to go?

Just go ahead and take the train to Venice. there appear to be two trains per hour in your time frame. They leave at 22 and 43 after the hour. It takes about 3;45 to get to venice Santa Lucia station and you will change trains in Milano Centrale. www.trenitalia.com

As long as you are in Milan anyway, you could leave your bags in the train station, and head for the Duomo. It is stunning from the outside in daylight and at night. Have a snack at McDonald's in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele next to it - the very first shopping mall built. Then take the train to Venice. Or stay overnight and take an early train. I'm all for seeing as much as possible. Which leads me to another idea: take the early train to Verona, leave your bags in the station, spend the day in Verona (one of my totally favorite places in Italy), then head for Venice.

Take the first train you can and go straight to Venice. Check into your hotel, deposit your bags, have dinner and then SLEEP. You are going to be exhausted and you can begin the next FULL day in Venice, instead of wasting several hours on a train from Milan and arriving mid-day.

Go to Venice. You really don't have time to do anything else. Probably not off the plane and through immigrations much before 3:30 and then another hour to the Central train station. And 30 minutes to catch your train to Venice. So you will be in Venice by about 9pm - or so and totally exhausted.

If you do go straight to Venice, please rest on the train. Once you get to Venice, there's the vaporetto ride to your hotel, possibly lots of walking as well. If you decide to stay in Milano on your first night, there are several streets outside the train station with lots of hotels. I agree that the Duomo at night is beautiful. Frankly, I've never eaten at a McDonald's in Italy. First, well, it's McDonald's, which I can find so many of in the US, and second, it's quite pricey compared to the US (a Big Mac meal was $11 at the current exchange rate). There's no shortage of places to find quick meals or snacks. If you want to get on your way to Venice, you might also stay in Padova for the first night (30 minutes from Venice by train), a quieter city with some beautiful churches and artwork (the Scrovegni Chapel needs a reservation because only 25 people can enter at one time, and then only for 15 minutes, but it's worth it).

I never, ever go into McDonald's unless I'm desperate for a toilet, but the one in the Galleria just looked so elegant!

In Rome, I saw Italians eating at McD as though it were actual food. They lingered. They had courses. Fries, followed by the fishwich course, followed by the cheeseburger course, followed by the dolci: cooled semi fluid sugary grey colored substance. They were there for 90 minutes.

Thanks for the replies! Looks like we will probably head straight to Venice. I know it will be a LONG day, but prefer to be where we want to start to really start our trip! BTW, flying to Milan due to frequent flier miles. Only airport we could get to with our points. I think I will pass on the McDonalds as well. Although it might be interesting to see the difference between cultures, I know there are much better options!