Travel in Milan

The best way is general a taxi or private driver but assume you have cost element involved in your "best" way. Which train station? Assuming the Central train station, there is a shuttle bus directly to the SE corner of the station. Don't know current cost. But it was reasonable a few years ago and doubt it is has changed much. There is a 30 min train to the other station on the west side of Milan.

I neglected to note which station and airport. We are going from the Malpesa airport to the mail train station in Milan.

That ride can cost you € 75 (standardized prices). If you want to same some bucks, do this: there is train service (Malpensa Express) running from the airport to another rail station (Milano Cadorna). From there you can catch a taxi to Milano Centrale (the "main" train station) for € 10, roughly. Milano Malpensa airport is 72km far from city center.

There is direct bus service from Malpensa airport to Centrale station, see www.malpensashuttle.it for details. The Malpensa Express train connects Malpensa to Cadorna station. Malpensa is about 30 miles northwest of the city center.

Mike, as the others have mentioned, the easiest method of getting from MXP to Milano Centrale is the Malpensa Shuttle (Bus). The trip is about 50-minutes and very easy. You can buy your tickets either inside the terminal (as I recall, there are ticket machines adjacent to the baggage carousels) OR directly from the Driver. The website link that Kent provided will provide the current costs and other details. As your destination is Milano Centrale, my suggestion would be to use the Shuttle rather than the Malpensa Express. While the train portion of the trip will be faster, by the time you add the Taxi and getting through traffic to Milano Centrale, that method will most likely take longer. Happy travels!

Mike, to add to Lee's reply, the Malpensa Shuttle will also be MUCH cheaper than the Malpensa Express / Taxi combination. The fare for the Malpensa Express is €11, plus the €10 for the Taxi (which could be higher depending on traffic at the time) will cost you AT LEAST €21, as opposed to the €7.50 for the Malpensa Shuttle. Cheers!

But the Malpensa Express/Metro 2 combination is €12,00 (€1,00) for the subway. I would prefer a train to a bus, but maybe the subway makes up for the difference.

Why a taxi? I looked at the map of the Milan Metro System, and it looks like Milan Centrale is only 5 stops away from Milan Cadorna on the '2' subway line.

The Malpensa Shuttle charges €7,50 one way for the 50 min trip from the airport to Milan Centrale.

That's true, the Malpensa Express/Metro combination is cheaper than the Express/Taxi method. After coming off a long flight, that would be more of a hassle for me than just using the Malpensa Shuttle, since Milano Centrale is the destination. Cheers!

While I highly recommend the bus from MPX to central station for cost and convenience, keep in mind that the trip can be longer than 50 minutes if your flight arrives early on a weekday morning. When fighting heavy rush hour traffic, the bus trip can sometimes take almost double that. If timing is important, then train and metro is more predictable.