one night in milan

Take the train from Malpensa to the city center (you can go to Cadorna Station or Milano Centrale) and stay there. Get right to bed and in the AM you can see the Duomo, catch a train around Noon to Venice, and be checked in in Venice by 3:00, if not sooner. You have to go to Milano Centrale to catch the train to Venice, so you might as well go in at night and enjoy the morning before your train to Venice. If you can buy your tickets from Milan to Venice before midnight the night before, you might qualify for a Mini Fare discount, if any are still available. Worth asking.

Thanks Laurel! Do you have any suggestions for a hotel?
Cynthia

Take this with a grain of salt because I am not a "leisurely" traveller. I would take the train or bus from Malpensa to the train station, Milano Centrale. Get a hotel near the station. We are staying at Hotel New York for 85 euros for one night in June. Check in, get a cab or bus to city center, see the Duomo at night, have a nice dinner and get in bed early. That way you can still take an early train to Venice if you wish. Mike

Cynthia:
We stayed in a splurge hotel in Milan. It was out last night in Italy (we flew out the next AM) so we decided to go upscale just one night. we stayed at the Hotel Una Maison. It was fabulous, one block from the Duomo Piazza. Milan's metro is easy to use. If you stay by the station, as recommended by Michael, you can pop over to the Duomo by Metro, or take about a 15 minute walk. If you stay by the station, you can also easily leave your luggage at the hotel until you are ready to leave for Venice. We don't drag our feet when traveling, but I don't like to rush, either. With an 8:45 PM arrival "getting to bed early" in Michael's words, will be relative to what you think is early. If your flight is on time and you don't have to wait too long for a train, (and you have carry-on luggage), you might be at your hotel by 10:00PM. Might. That's a bit late for me to go to dinner, see the Duomo.... Especially after a long trip from the US. :-)

Thanks everyone! Laurel, I am not sure what kind of shape we will be in when arriving in Milan. I am annoyed with British Air, originally we were going to arrive at 5:45 pm and they changed the flight and now we arrive at 8:45pm! ( they didn't notify us either) . We will have 7 hour lay over in London.
Does anyone know if we will have to go through customs in both London and Milan? My only hope for extra energy is that we may still be on EST, but that could be all wiped out since we have a red eye flight from Washington DC to London.

I've got the same 7 hour layover in London! I've researched the Milan end. Here is a good Link: http://www.airwise.com/airports/europe/milan_mxp/by_bus.html Basically, I think the Malpensa shuttle is the way to go. It takes around 50 minutes to get to Milan, and it will drop you off at the Milan central train station. Here is the info on the train: http://www.airwise.com/airports/europe/milan_mxp/by_train.html from that page:
"The Malpensa Express links Milan's Cadorna Station and Milan Malpensa Terminal 1. Trains run every 30 minutes." The Cadorna station IS NOT the main train station. It looks like it is about 1 Km northwest of the Duomo. Milano Centrale, the main station (where you will most certainly catch your train to Venice) is about 2.5 Km Northeast of the Duomo. The train leaves every 30 minutes and makes the trip in 40 minutes. The bus leaves every 20 minutes and takes about 50 minutes. The train is 11 euros and the bus is 7.50, or 12 euros round trip. Regarding the 7 hour layover we share in London; we're coming from the west coast, so we have an 11 hour flight. We're going to the Radisson hotel where we can check into the spa for 10 pounds each. We can jacuzzi, steam bath and shower and then we will feel human. Afterwards, we'll walk down the road to The Pheasant Pub. It's supposed to be a pretty nice pub. Getting to the Radisson can be done on the local busses. They are free while they circle Heathrow. PM me if you want more details.

@Ted - There is now a train from Malpensa directly to Milan Centrale (I think it started this past fall). It runs 2x per hour during the day, but probably only hourly by the time you arrive. The cost is 7 euros. On the Trenitalia website you can see the schedule if you type Malpensa Aeroporto as your starting point and Milano Centrale as your end point. I wouldn't pre-purchase tickets, since you never know if there will be a flight change or delay. Just have info on hand for both the train and shuttle and take whichever one works best once you get through customs.

Ho, Cynthia! No ideas ofr Milan, but grateful for all the repsonses to your post, because we will be passing t hrough this sumemr also. As to London, if your layover is at heathrow, you can easily get the Tube into the City for a couple of hours of fun there -- unless you're too exhausted!
Enjoy!

This past September, we stayed at the Best Western Major which is right by a metro stop and on the yellow line of the metro. Very easy and convenient. The hotel had a great buffet breakfast and the rates were great. Best Westerns in Europe are a lot better than here in the States.