Verona to MXP

IMO too risky
Stuff happens, train delays etc

It’s over 2 hours total on 2 trains

Verona is nice. However go to Milan the night before, stay at hotel berna, have nice dinner and train to mxp the next morning. At least that is what we did.

I agree with Christine and John. Plan on being at MXP by 10:30 and by staying in Milan you won’t feel rushed.

We were in Italy earlier this summer. We only had two hiccups and one was a train delay. It did not “ruin” our trip by any means we simply arrived t our next city 2 hours late. However, if you are relying on the trains to get you from one city to another and have to be at the airport before noon for your flight, I personally would not be able to sleep the night before. We stayed at the Hotel Garda, in the same area as the Hotel Berna which I would recommend. There are several Rick Steves recommended hotels in this area, which is easy walking distance to Milano Centrale. As the other poster said, I personally would stay in Milan, enjoy a wonderful dinner and take the Malpensa Express to the airport to fly out.

I agree with previous suggestions to stay in Milan the night prior to your flight. While it's certainly possible that you could make the flight if you stayed in Verona, you'd have to be prepared to miss the flight and have all the hassles associated with that.

One possibility you could consider would be to store your luggage for a few hours at your Verona hotel after checking out (if they allow that?) and than spend the day in Verona. Take the train to Milan in the late afternoon and have dinner there. You could stay either at the hotels suggested which are close to Milano Centrale, or to be really sure about getting your flight, stay at the Malpensa Sheraton which is right at the airport. You can walk from the hotel right into the terminal.

Where are you flying to? I guess I'm not as risk-averse as everyone else on the thread, because in your situation, I would stay somewhere like Verona myself. I once had a flight out of Milan in the afternoon and took a 7am train from Levanto to get there. It was a direct train to Milano Centrale and an airport train from there. I had a few hours to spare. But my flight was a Schengen flight (to Amsterdam), so I did not need to arrive quite as early at MXP. Still, Verona is a lot closer to Milan than Levanto is, and there are numerous direct trains to Milan from Verona. Looks like if you take a Frecciarossa train it's about 1:20 to Milano Centrale and about an hour from there to MXP. There are regional trains to Milan too - if you don't want to buy a train early or want to "wing it" with a regional train that might cost a lot less, just leave Verona earlier.

Work backwards and figure out the absolutely latest you can get to MXP, add some buffer, and plan to arrive really early at MXP in case there's some delay. Really, getting to Milano Cenrale is your biggest hurdle, because if there's some sort of train issue to the airport, at worst you could take an expensive taxi ride from there to MXP.

Flying to Montreal and on to SFO. Thanks

Hey Richard / all. Seems like there are 2 parts to this question: (1) the train info / options, and (2) your risk / stress profile. As far as part 1, your idea seems very low risk. Looks like there are 6 different trains from Verona between 6:52 and 8:46 that will likely get you to Malpensa by 10:46, possibly as early as 9:16. From a train standpoint, seems like a very high chance it would work fine. As far as part 2 of the question, only you know your risk / stress tolerance. Some people are OK, or even enjoy, situations like this; for others it is stressful and uncomfortable. Whatever you decide, have a great trip!

I’ve done some things similar to that so I’m not too worried. Worse comes to worse you spend some money and take a cab or a transfer service. It looks very doable to me. Thanks

Yes, very doable, and as you say, have a backup plan in case something goes wrong. I didn't really love Milan myself so I would probably do the same thing if flying out of there again.