Visiting the Duomo in Milan
The Duomo di Milano is a breathtaking gothic cathedral in the heart of Milan, and is easily the city’s most iconic landmark. It is one of the largest churches in the world and took almost 600 years to build. Famous for it’s gothic architecture and intricate statues and spires, this piece of history is a must see when visiting Milan!
The Duomo is in a large square in the center of Milan and is easy to get to using public transport. The closest Metro station is Duomo on the M3 (yellow line) which will bring you out in the Piazza del Duomo, with the cathedral right in front of you. Be careful of pickpockets on the Metro in Milan – we had two men follow us through the turnstiles and try to steal our phones!
If you’re wanting to get a picture in front of the Duomo without many people in the background, I recommend going as early as possible to avoid the crowds. The square gets busy quite early and tends to stay that way all day – we took these pictures at 6:30am and it was starting to fill up by 7am. The people who work at the Duomo start outing metal barriers out front of the cathedral about 7am to control the queues, so I recommend getting there before then if you don’t want them in your shot.
The Duomo is open from 9am every day and you can purchase tickets to enter the cathedral, the museum, and the terraces together or separately. I recommend purchasing your tickets in advance on the Duomo di Milano official website to avoid having to queue to buy them on the day.
If you’re visiting the Duomo di Milano, don’t miss the rooftop terraces! This was one of our favourite parts of our visit to the cathedral and it’s definitely worth paying a bit extra for tickets to the terraces to see the panoramic views of Milan below. You can purchase tickets for just the rooftop terraces, if you’re not interested in going into the cathedral itself. Tickets for the terraces can be via stairs access or lift (which costs a little bit extra). There are a lot of stairs to get up there, but we found it to be easily manageable. It’s worth noting that the only way down from the terraces is via stairs, so you might want to keep that in mind when booking tickets. I definitely recommend going up to the rooftop terraces later in the afternoon so you can enjoy the beautiful afternoon light. Be sure to take some water with you as it can get very hot up there in the summer, and there’s nowhere to get water once you’re up there.
