My husband and I are traveling to Italy in September,flying to Milan then on to Florence by rail. In order to determine what train to take,I need to know how much time I should allow for customs. Any ideas????

Malpensa is not an extraordinarily big or busy airport; customs is pretty cursory. We pretty much just walked through customs and immigration (except for a quick stamp) to the arrival lounge in a matter of minutes.

In Sept 99 I arrived on a Thursday a.m. via American Airlines. The lines for passport control moved very slow. It took about an hour to take the bus from the plane and get through immigration. Jean

Customs didn't take long last October for us. You can save time by not checking luggage; waiting for luggage can often consume the most time. If your train to Florence leaves from Stazione Centrale in Milan you will have to take the bus there from the airport and the length of that trip depends what time of day you are traveling. Could be longer in morning rush hour.

I second Ellen's post. I just walked by the customs agent at Malpensa, but waited 1 hour for my luggage to come out before going through cutsoms. The bust to Milan's Central station runs at least every hour, and maybe every 1/2 hour? Once you get out of customs you'll see the desk to buy your ticket for the bus trip. Malpensa is not a large airport and the terminal is very manageable, but you may find yourself waiting. Finally, Malpensa has one of the worst on-time arrival records in Europe, plan plenty of time to get to your train to Florence, or consider spending the night in Milan.

I think the bus runs from Malpensa to the train station every 1/2 hour or 45 minutes. Each time we've taken the train to Florence, we have not bought tickets in advance; we've just bought them at the train station when we arrive there. The trains from Milan to Florence run frequently, so if you don't catch one, you could wait the hour or so, and take the next. I don't know that you need to worry about timing too much (unless you're travelling at a very busy time).

Our experience at Malpensa was similar to that described by others. But have you looked into flying from Malpensa to Florence? Unless you plan to spend time in Milan (which I recommend), you can save yourself several hours by just making a connection at Malpensa.

Thanks for all your input. Unfortunately, since we will be in Italy for three weeks, our luggage size would preclude us from checking it.(I know what you're thinking) We are flying Luftansa to Munich then to Milan. We thought we'd rather get on a train than another plane.

Allison--I would second the suggestion about flying to Florence. We are flying Newark-London-Milan-Florence and back out of Milan. My question is -- does anyone know about left luggage at Malpensa??? At the end of two weeks in Italy, we are taking the QE2 home out of England, and want to leave our ship luggage at Malpensa while we travel in Italy. Feel a little uncomfortable not to have that fully planned out before leaving, as the thought of hauling the ship luggage through Italy for two weeks is not appealing.

Allison, if I were you I would sure check into taking a plane to Florence from Munich or as someone else suggested, connecting in Malpensa. Sometimes its very hard to understand just how tired you can be after all that traveling. Getting on a plane from Malpensa would better than getting off, arranging bus tickets, taking said bus into Milan, figuring out the Central Train station there, etc. etc. Another option would be to walk off your plane at malpensa and right into a a waiting taxi for the trip to Milan. It is expensive, ($80) and a connecting flight would be probably be the same. Being tired makes people vulnerable. If you are making all of those connections in one fell swoop of a travel day, I would urge you to consider the flight or spend the night in the Malpensa area before moving on to Florence.

Two problems as I see it. Now with the EU immigration is easier for Europeans. That means officers can be cut back and the only ones who feel this are the Americans/Canadians etc. So, when a big transatlantic AA flight arrives, things back up.Luggage handling has been slowed this summer at Malpensa periodically because of labor union slow downs. To solve this, I would a.) Stay the night in Milan--it's certainly worth a look see b.) Fly from London to Florence or Pisa, which is close by c.) Fly from Munich to Florence or Pisa. d.) Investigate what you can do with Bologna--that's an easy airport and you can be in Florence in an hour via train right to Sta. Maria Novella in the center of the city. Last month a UAL flight was 6 hours late arriving at SFO from Malpensa because of luggage handler woes. My husband took that flight the next day so we were tracking it. I think the labor dispute is solved now. Good luck.

The plane to Florence is sounding better all the time. What airlines would you suggest for the flight from Malpensa to Florence?

Malpensa to Florence would be Alitalia.

Thanks!! Kikki and all. We are now on Alitalia to Florence.