Plan to stay in Milan for 3 days and have a 6:30am flight out of Malpensa airport. After reading the logs on where to stay near airport for early flight we are undecided what to do. Is it practical to stay at a different hotel in center of city to see sites(Last Supper,etc) and then transfer to Hotel Cervo the night before flight to get a shuttle to airport at 5:00am. Thinking of taking bus shuttle to airport and then have Hotel Cervo pick us up there to stay the night and save money assuming Hotel Cervo is best place to be. My wife had a crazy idea to leave Milan late at night and crash at airport until 6:00am flight.

Someone had an unpleasant report a few weeks ago about the nasty characters lurking around when they were forced by circumstance to sleep in the Paris CDG airport. I do think it's a crazy idea to end a nice trip by spending the last night in the airport.

I can't advise on taxi or hotel, but just wanted to oppose the idea of sleeping at the Milan airport. (Forgive me, as I haven't tried it, and it may be wonderful, but it sounds terrible to me.)

Thanks WillTravel,
I thought the same way about spending a night in an airport. Wife is just trying out different ideas and wanted to include it in the post. I don't think that an option with me.

find out what time cervo's shuttle ( it is not free, btw, but is cheap ) starts.. you may be forced to take taxi anyway. they say about 15 euros, but we paid 25!!!??? ( possibly late night/early morning supplement)

they could not pick us up when we came in.. (after midnight).

you do have the malpensa shuttle from milane centrale train station every 20 minutes.

staying in milan would probably only mean giving yourself another hour and a half in bed, anyway, unless you are far from that station.

hotel cervo , and the surroundings are VERY boring.

goeurope - we have the same scenario coming up in over a week. Our plane leaves at 7:30am so we're going to see the Last Supper the late afternoon before, bus (or train?) to the airport, have First Hotel shuttle pick us up to spend last night, then have First Hotel shuttle us back very early the next morning. I, too, read the report about not being comfortable hanging out in the airport for the night.

Thanks to all who have written with advice/comments. We booked with Hotel Cervo at the airport to stay there overnight and use their shuttle service at 5:00AM. Still haven't found a room in Centre to stay the other 2 nights for sightseeing. Any recommendations?

We enjoyed the Hotel Spadari. It is a very short walk to the Duomo and other in-town attractions. It is not the cheapest place, but we got a good rate. Lots of good restaurants, etc. around the area.