What is the Milan self-guided walking tour?
The Milan self-guided walking tour is a walk whose pace you set yourself, with audio narration on your phone where a guide would otherwise be. Allow about 3 hours: 53 minutes of that is walking, the route covers 4.2 km, and there are 10 stops where you stand still and listen. No group forms and no hour is fixed.
At Sforza Castle the narration opens with the fortress Francesco Sforza turned into a ducal home from 1450, and with the Rondanini Pietà, the sculpture Michelangelo was still working on at the end of his life. Outside Santa Maria delle Grazie you hear what Leonardo was doing in the refectory next door between 1495 and 1498. Later come the two holes in a column at Sant'Ambrogio that the Devil is said to have left, the frescoes Bernardino Luini painted inside San Maurizio, and the evening of 3 August 1778 when the opera house opened with Salieri's Europa riconosciuta.
- Durationabout 3 hours
- Walkingabout 53 min · 4.2 km
- Stops10
- LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish
What you do on the walking tour
Listen
At each stop the audio gives you the history of the place, its legends and the details you would otherwise walk past. The same text sits on the screen for anyone who would rather read.
Walk
Google Maps links the stops: 53 minutes of walking over 4.2 km, at whatever pace suits you.
Break off
Take a coffee or an hour in a museum, then pick the walk up again, the same afternoon or another day.
Eat and browse
Tips for food and shops near the route arrive along with the stops. The opening point and the order are yours to rearrange in the app.
See the route and attractions →
How it works
- Book online Choose the number of people. Your booking reference arrives by email straight away.
- Get the app Download the World City Trail app from the App Store or Google Play and enter your booking reference.
- Walk when you like Start whenever you are ready, walk at your own pace and pause any time. No guide, no fixed schedule.
Who the walking tour is for
A first visit
One walk puts the castle, the churches and the squares of the centre in order and explains what you are looking at.
Anyone who avoids groups
No umbrella to follow and no meeting point: you stay where something holds you and move on when you decide to.
One day in the city
3 hours covers the centre, which leaves the afternoon free for a museum, for the shops or for the canals of the Navigli.
Good to know
- Bring a charged smartphone with mobile data; a power bank helps.
- No entry tickets needed: everything happens outside the buildings. Going inside is optional and paid separately.
- Family friendly; children must be accompanied by an adult.
- Not suitable for wheelchair users and difficult with strollers.
- Groups of up to 5 work best; larger groups split up, one ticket per person.
- Every purchase helps support stray cats and dogs in Greece.
The walk stop by stop: Sforza Castle, Sant'Ambrogio, the Duomo, Piazza della Scala
10 stops · about 53 min walking · start: Sforza Castle (Castello Sforzesco) · finish: Teatro alla Scala
The opening stop is Sforza Castle, at the edge of Parco Sempione. From there the route goes west to Santa Maria delle Grazie and the battlemented Castello Cova, turns south to the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio with the Temple of Victory standing beside it, and carries on to San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore. Medieval Milan follows at Piazza dei Mercanti, then come the Duomo and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, and the walk ends at Teatro alla Scala, on the square that carries the opera house's name. Another opening stop or another order is a setting in the app, and nothing on the way asks for an entry ticket.
Open the route map ↗
1Sforza Castle (Castello Sforzesco)Start
Galeazzo II Visconti built the first castle here in the 14th century, and from 1450 Francesco Sforza turned it into his ducal residence. The tall Filarete Tower above the entrance was rebuilt by Luca Beltrami in 1900–1905, and the castle museums hold Michelangelo's last sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà.
2Santa Maria delle Grazie
Guiniforte Solari began this Dominican church in 1463, and its Renaissance apse and dome are attributed to Donato Bramante. In the refectory of the convent next door Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper in 1495–1498, and church and convent have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980.
3Castello Cova
Castello Cova is a private residence on Via Carducci, built in the early 20th century in a neo-medieval style. With its brick walls, battlements and tower it looks like a small medieval castle, although it was built as a home and never served as a fortress.
4Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio
Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan, founded this basilica in 379–386, and the present Romanesque church dates mostly from the late 11th and 12th centuries. Its two bell towers belonged to the monks and the canons, and according to legend the two holes in the marble column beside the church were made by the Devil's horns.
5Temple of Victory
The Temple of Victory, also known as the Sacrario dei Caduti Milanesi, is Milan's memorial to the soldiers from the city who died in the First World War. The octagonal marble building was completed in the late 1920s and stands right next to the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio.
6San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore
This church was begun in 1503 for the most important Benedictine convent in Milan. A wall divides it into a hall for the public and a hall for the nuns, and its walls are covered in 16th-century frescoes, many by Bernardino Luini, which is why it is often called the Sistine Chapel of Milan.
7Piazza dei Mercanti
This square was the centre of medieval Milan. The Palazzo della Ragione, built in 1233, housed the city government, and on its arcade you can spot a relief of the half-woolly sow, linked by legend to the origin of the name Mediolanum, while opposite stands the Loggia degli Osii of 1316.
8Milan Cathedral (Duomo)
The cathedral was begun in 1386 under Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and its façade was only completed in Napoleon's time, in the early 19th century. Built of pale pink Candoglia marble, it is one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the world, with thousands of statues and the gilded Madonnina on its highest spire.
9Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
Designed by Giuseppe Mengoni and built from 1865 to 1877, this glass-roofed arcade links Piazza del Duomo with Piazza della Scala, and its two wings meet under a large glass dome. Tradition says that spinning three times on your heel on the bull in the floor mosaic brings good luck.
10Teatro alla ScalaFinish
Milan's opera house opened on 3 August 1778 with Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta, in a neoclassical building by Giuseppe Piermarini. It takes its name from the church of Santa Maria della Scala, which once stood on the site, and in the square in front stands Pietro Magni's monument to Leonardo da Vinci from 1872.
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France –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Maria – Austria –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Nice idea and it also works fine, but the world city trail app could be better.
Monica– Italy –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Bella esperienza, il tour a livello di informazioni ? molto basilare ma sono molto belle le curiosit? su Milano che ti fa leggere a fine di ogni tappa. Noi ci abbiamo messe diverse ore per completare il tour, perch? se ti fermi anche solo un momento a osservare l’interno e/o esterno delle tappe nel loro splendore si dilatano molto i tempi.
United States –
Collected on GetYourGuide
This was a great tour. The audio was very helpful and informative but I wish I had gotten there earlier as it was longer than i had anticipated. Leave a couple of hours to listen and tour through the terraces and the church. There is a lot to see and learn about!