Excluding flight times, will have 5 full days in Milan in early October. Is there enough to do for 5 days? Considering a day trip to either Lake Como, Piedmont, or Cinque Terre....any thoughts? Plane ticket from NYC to Malpensa $400 RT (NWA/KLM). Hotel for 4 nights at the Enterprise hotel (I know, a little bit out of the main area in Milan but thought it'd be nice to sleep somewhere quite....that and I got the hotel for 584 EUR total). Sites I'd like to see:

Duomo (of course!)
Castello Sforzesco
Santa Maria della Grazie (Cenacolo Vinciano)
Teatro alla Scalla
Brera museum & flea market (are there certain days for this?)
Am I missing any places?
Suggestions for places/stores to shop at (women's clothes/shoes & leather goods)

Oh, and might do drive to Serravalle outlet, but don't know if it's worth the hassle. Can I get good deals in Milan compared to the prices here in New York?

Advice is greatly appreciatted.

One full day is plenty for many people, except diehard shoppers.

That prices sounds really cheap -- taxes included? How did you find it? Thanks.

Plane ticket was one of those cash & miles deals through NWA. Total airline with taxes was $397. Hotel I did online (price excludes taxes).

If one full day is enough...what should I do the other 4? What are good day trips? Lake Como?

Thanks -- sorry to ask these irrelevant questions, but how does a cash and miles deal work? Do you mean that you can use some miles and pay cash to make up the balance? Just curious. I don't fly NWA that often.

Why not head to the lakes for a few days and stay there and then come back to Milan for your flight? Not that I've been, but it will take you at least two hours to get to the "interesting" parts of Lake Como, I believe. Why rush it in a day trip?

Case & miles: sometimes they have these promos where you can sacrifice less miles by paying some in cash. So, I have to give up 20,000 miles and $397.

As for longer than a day trip, I'm an idiot and booked the hotel for 4 nights in advance online and there's a penalty for cancelling. Is there a train to Lake Como? How long?

Many people use Milan as an entry and exit point and not a primary destination.

You could do the Lakes (has to be done early in Oct before it turns chilly and the rains come), or Venice or Florence - all easy via rail. I'd land and then press on to my primary destination and then return for a night or two in milan before flying home.

Can you do a partial cancelation, i.e., stay for the first night or two? Had you booked the hotel directly, most hotels wouldn't have such a stiff cancelation policy that you couldn't change the reservation at all.

You may want to do a search on posts by GAC. He/She appears to be our resident Italy expert. You can type GAC into the search box, and once you've found a post he/she has written, click on the name to get all the threads to which he/she has contributed. I recall seeing some fairly extensive posts about getting from Milan to Como.

As I said, I'm not the expert. To get to Bellagio, for example, the options appear to be a train to Como followed by ferry. Otherwise, there's a train to Varenna and you can take the ferry to Bellagio.

Other posters more familiar with the area will chime in, no doubt.

But I'm guessing the actual trip will take longer than 2 hours.

Thanks! I will now look for posts by "GAC"

I found two of these for you. They tell you how you can get to Lake Como from Milan airport -- which is not what you want to do. But you will get some ideas this way:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessa...creen_name=GAC

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessa...creen_name=GAC

Maybe it's not as bad as I thought:

This deals with Milan to Varenna -- train takes 1 hour and 20 minutes, according to the thread.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessa...=train+varenna

have you been to Varenna?

No. I've never been to the lakes. I considered this area for my trip in a couple of weeks, so that's why I was giving some attention to posts related to the area. But in the end I opted for something else.

I've only been in Milan once for a day and change in 1999. That was my last stop on my trip before I flew back to NYC (so we're both from NYC).

Milan Central Station to Como is 45 minutes. From there you can easily walk to the heart of the city.

You can spend the day in Como shopping and eating.

Or you can stay on the train and go to Lugano in Switzerland. It is not much further than Como.

Lugano is a great suggestion. I had forgotten about it -- but I've never been there either.

Good day trips: Bergamo or Vigevano ( very close). If there's direct train service: Cremona, Mantova. I think the longest I was ever in Milan was three nights, and that was enough for the Sforza castle, Brera galleries, duomo, and Last Supper, and an attempted day trip that didn't work too well since the trains were many hourslate because of work slowdowns. A few years ago i was in Milan for two nights, but that was just so I could meet an Internet acquaintance one night and spend a full day in Bergamo. I generally try to avoid Milan, becaue I really don't like it. However, that doesn't mean that there are not worthwhile things to do thre. If I go to Milan again, I will try to go and look at the canals. A friend who grew up there finds thm an interesting sight.

Have you been to Venice? It's ~3 hrs. by train from Milan.

I'm apparently one of the few who enjoys Milan. Never leave Milan without stopping at Peck. Its what Dean & DeLuca wants to be.