Visiting Last Supper and Duomo

Hello Lorrie,

The fast train from Milan to Venice is ~2:30 so you could leave as late as the 14:45 train and be in Venice by 17:12.
The Last Supper tickets are timed, involve small groups and your time with the painting will be limited to your time slot so that part of it will be easy to schedule. Getting the tickets in a time that works for you will really be the only real hold-up.

The Santa Maria delle Grazie (the church that holds the Last Supper) is kind of across town from the train station but the metro is relatively close and easy to put together but will require a change or a bit of a walk. But that also brings up the only aspect you haven't mentioned which is bags.

Whenever you think about what to do on travel days you always have to consider bags. If you're leaving on the 4th you probably will have checked out of your hotel before seeing the painting and they will probably hang onto your bags for you, but that means Last Supper > hotel to collect bags > train station by 14:30 (2:30pm) and that may be easy or hard depending on where you're staying. If you haven't booked a hotel if you're staying for one night staying near the train station isn't the most scenic area but it's okay and convenient. Otherwise book keeping mind you'll probably need to visit the hotel in transit.

So this sounds like a perfectly viable plan time-wise, but it hinges on getting the tickets and the logistics of getting around town. You'll want to buy your fast train tickets as early as possible to lock them in and get the best price, but unless you want to book the latest train feasible and hope you'll probably want to get the Last Supper tickets first.

Hope that helps,
=Tod

For what it's worth, I did the Last Supper and the Duomo in the same day last Fall. I did get the earliest "English tour" offered by the venue which was excellent. I think I went in at 930. The guide provided by the museum was excellent and handed us whisper sets so she could talk and walk. I think we were finished in under an hour.

I'd booked my fast pass for 1300 for the Duomo and had enough time to visit the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana (has the cartoon Raphael drew for the School of Athens fresco in the Vatican Museum as well as Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus) and grab a sandwich/cold drink from a vendor in between the two.

The walk from the Last Supper to the Duomo was about 30 minutes. I walk a moderate pace but stopped a few times to look at ruins, lol. The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana is just 5 minutes or so from the Duomo and was right across the street from my hotel.

I do recommend the fast pass as you take the elevator mostly to the top of the Duomo. You still have several flights of stairs to climb to get to the absolute top of the roof. I have a fear of heights but was able to do this anyway. You do have to walk down and wind up in the Duomo from the back. When I was there part of the Duomo was not accessible. The fast pass also gave me access to the excavation area at the front of the Duomo that goes under the piazza out front which I found interesting. It also had a museum entry but it was my first full day after arrival and I'll admit that jet lag got the better of me by late afternoon!

From what I've read on this forum, getting tickets to The Last Supper without having to go through a commercial ticket agency or tour company--which obviously costs a lot more--is a very big challenge. I myself wouldn't want to count on getting tickets from the official source for any specific time. I wonder whether it would be safe to wait to buy the Duomo tickets until after you have tickets for The Last Supper and know your precise timing. I haven't been to Milan at all recently, so I don't know the answer to that question.

The Duomo is both the interior of the cathedral and the roof. We got the lift tix because walking up 300 steps is not what we wanted to do. You will walk down, unless you are impaired. I'd plan on an hour on the roof and an hour inside. In October, getting tix on the spot should not be a problem.

"I wonder whether it would be safe to wait to buy the Duomo tickets until after you have tickets for The Last Supper and know your precise timing."

Yes, definitely wait to get your Duomo tickets until after you get your Last Supper timing settled. I'm looking at the calendar for the Duomo entries and there are times available for tomorrow so that should not be a problem.

https://ticket.duomomilano.it/en/categoria/biglietti/

Go to the official website for the Last Supper. You do need to watch this site and be ready to purchase as soon as they pop up as being open. At present ticketing is only thru July 31. They usually release them in 3 month batches so I'd make it a routine to start checking the ticketing website every morning.

https://cenacolovinciano.org/en/

Ticketing website:
https://cenacolovinciano.vivaticket.it/index.php

Thank you to everyone for your very helpful replies.
An additional question is how much time we should approximately allow to visit both the Duomo/Museum and the Last Supper/Museum.
Depending on answers/opinions, may determine whether we try to do both on the same day or break it up for one full day and the next morning.
Is it worth it to take the English tour of the Last Supper or do you gain as much without tour?

As mentioned, I thought the English tour of the Last Supper given by the museum was excellent and it is just 8E or so more than the admission. Your time in the room with the actual Last Supper is limited and the guards usher you out even as the guide is still talking, lol. There is one (or maybe two) more rooms after that with information about damage in WWII with photos where they continue to talk and then exit to the bookshop and a comfort stop if you need it. Not more than an hour for the whole thing.

For the Duomo visit, I went up a little before my 1300 fast pass lift time (maybe 15 minutes) and was there until 330 or so. That was just the Duomo roof, the Duomo interior and the archeological dig at the front of the Duomo. That did not include a museum visit. It looks like the Duomo ticket is good for 3 days? So you could finish off the museum the next morning if you wanted to, unless you needed to get your Last Supper ticket for that day.

I did the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in about an hour but I did not spend a lot of time on things other than the Raphael, some Brueghels, an Avercamp and the da Vinci writings.

I'll add that if it's hot I think the roof would be better in the AM. I went on Sept 27 and had comfortable afternoon temps even for my heat intolerant self.

They do ask you to be at the Last Supper 30 minutes ahead of time based on my notes from last Fall.

This is helpful information. I'll be in Varenna in October and passing through Milan on my way to Venice, but I plan to store my backpack at the train station for a few hours to see the Last Supper and the Duomo. I'll keep watching to see if anyone adds any more important hints about how to manage a rushed visit to Milan.

For KRS: Unless you have tix for the Last Supper, I doubt you will be able to see the fresco if you stop in and try to get tix at the last minute. We decided not to bother. The Duomo is more than do-able in a couple hours.