Talk:Milan Voyage Tips and guide

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Although I agree that the Stazione centrale is not a nice area to walk the night, You can't say there are just a few budget hotels... and the Gallia? the Michelangelo? same for eating : Il Gambero Rosso? (WT-en) Ub 02:22, 30 May 2006 (EDT)

Just a few budget hotels, thats far from the truth really. I find that most of the cheaper end of the hotels, are all the same no matter what the price. Even some of the "nice" looking hotels like Amadaus (for standard rooms etc). What is it with Italy and having really small crappy rooms/beds, but really big and nice bathrooms? :D And the poor lighting is another common one, oh and being harassed constantly by the hotel staff and cleaners etc. meh I could go on...

I have removed and changed the following lines

Taxis are pretty expensive and drivers are theoretically not allowed to catch walking customers, they should only pick up from taxi stands or by phone booking. Anyway they'll pick you up even if they can't.

Since the city regulation do allow taxi to pick up walking customer. (see article 26 of this pdf version of the regulation) (WT-en) AnyFile 08:44, 15 October 2006 (EDT)

FOr more information about the special telephon number 848.814.781. to call a taxi stand see this document from the municipality

Why is this picture at the top of the article? That is such an ugly and modern building and considering Milan's status and history there are millions of better images which can be used. That kind of building is like something out of the USA and not a symbol of one of Europe's greatest cities. 213.230.129.22 08:49, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Pirelli Building is anything but ugly. The picture could be better and of course, there are mllions of better images which can be used. But all the photos are very bad: I think that they have been choosed by someone who don't want to show the beauty of Milan. (NV) —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 89.96.254.138 (talk • contribs)

Perhaps one of you might plunge forward and upload some better pictures of the city?  ;) --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 22:37, 1 April 2010 (EDT)

Is it just me or is this bus taking longer and longer to do it's trip? The article said 30minutes when quite etc, on weekends but recently, even in the dead of night, it usually takes 40 minimum, and easily an hour even without much traffic. There is only a little hold up in teh city outskirts anyway since the autostradle's are clear enough for a "slow" bus, and then the dedicated bus lanes etc... but still, its slower... No matter what I say to the conductor for this service, they always try and give me a single ticket instead of the return ticket I ask for; English, Italian, hand signs... nothing works first time.

People need to be careful now, since there is another malpensa service running and sits in the "malpensa express" queue by the station and the conductors try and pull in as many as possible. The bus looks a little crappy.

I have been editing the hotel listings for errors and consistency. I have left the parts in the address that appear to be zip codes. I am not sure the relation to the address and how important they are for travelers... As is customary on wikivoyage I have removed the city and country names from the addresses. I would like to also remove these "zip codes" but I want to make sure somebody with local knowledge agrees that they are not necessary. (WT-en) Carson 18:29, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Shouldn't Milan have some districts? Some sections, such as See and Sleep, have too much listings.--2.80.101.61 06:22, 6 September 2010 (EDT)

I agree, this this page is already over 100kb. (WT-en) –sumone10154 22:46, 9 April 2011 (EDT)

Against. I just think that there are too many options in Sleep/Splurge, not that they would merit districtification. Everything looks like they're within 10 minutes walking of each other. Shopping will be the largest section, because it's Milan, the fashion capital of the world.--(WT-en) rfilmyer 16:56, 1 May 2011 (EDT)

I think, districtification would be fine given the number of listings, any suggestions on how to do it?, --(WT-en) ClausHansen 17:07, 1 May 2011 (EDT)

Milan has nine administrative districts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughs_of_Milan . I think this could be (at least) a starting point... --Gebaale 17 January 2013

I would like to move on with the districtification. But is it not too many districts using the official nine? Does anyone have an idea of how to merge some of the official districts ending up with say four or five districts?, --ClausHansen (talk) 07:45, 17 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

It's not possible to merge Boroughs in any way. If you want to split Milan in 4, use the cardinal points (NSWE). I wouldn't even use the official 9 districts, since they are more a administrative division (invented and implemented in 1999) and nobody really knows about it. Another thing to take care is that in zone 1 there're 80% of touristic sights. --Luckyz (talk) 09:51, 8 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I've said it before and I say it again - administrative divisions of cities are made with the needs of the inhabitants in mind, not visitors, and while they are often useful as guidelines they are almost never practical to copy verbatim to our guides (for instance suburbs seldom have very much to offer to a visitor). The article is relatively long but I do not think there is enough material for nine different districts. Luckyz is very correct that most things of interest are within 20 minutes of walk from Duomo. Therefore I would propose a division into four districts following like this: Central Milan (Zone 1), Northern Milan (Zones 2, 3 and 9), Western Milan (Zones 7 and 8) and Southern Milan (Zones 4, 5 and 6). Ps. it's well over four years since this discussion was started so it would be nice if we could do something about it - at the very least decide whether a districtification is necessary or not? ϒpsilon (talk) 19:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Do you really believe there is enough material to fill four different articles? How about starting with two (Centro Storico and "Outer districts and suburbs of Milan") and see how it pans out? We can always split the "outer districts" further if this article starts getting unwieldy. PrinceGloria (talk) 20:57, 9 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

It would perhaps be useful to put the coordinates in all listings first to get an overview of all POIs. If we decide to split the city into just two articles, I think it would be better to create just a Centro Storico article and let the points of interest outside the city center remain here in Milan. ϒpsilon (talk) 21:28, 9 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

So let's add all the latlongs and see, but I guess keeping non-central POIs in the main article would make it too confusing. If a city is districtified, all specific POIs should go to district articles (but perhaps the most important ones, like railway stations or airport, which could remain duplicated in the main article). PrinceGloria (talk) 21:53, 9 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

OK, now everything (except the universities) has coordinates. I think there is enough information for e.g. four district articles. If we would split Milan into just Centro Storico and Outer Districts, some POIs in the latter would have nothing in common except that they are not in the city center, which would be odd. Especially as you would often need to go through the city center to travel from one POI to another. ϒpsilon (talk) 16:14, 19 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

<indent reset> First off, I take off my hat and take a deep Japanese bow to you for completing this mammoth task. This is truly splendid and I admire your determination to complete this toil.
As regards the district split though, on the one hand you base your estimation on the number of districts that Milan should be split into solely on the number of POIs, and then you reject this reasoning when discussing how to handle the POIs outside of Zone 1, of which there are a dozen or so, including our recommended places for gay folk to catch VD and worse.
The main reason we do districtifying is to distribute POIs when there are too many of them. Sometimes huge cities with many clearly defined and geographically separated district are kept within a single article when there aren't too many POIs. Conversely, we often have cities where some very small, but POI-cpacked, areas have separate articles, while the entire belt of suburbs are bundled into one.
I believe the latter would be the best solution for Milan - there is no point in dividing a dozen POIs into separate districts, while bundling remote suburbs with parts of the centre does not make much sense either (getting to any of the remote POIs has little to do with navigating any section of the centre). I do agree that given the number of POIs we may want to split the Zone 1 itself further indeed, but have no clear idea on how to do it in a reasonable way at this moment. PrinceGloria (talk) 21:22, 19 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the compliment :)! It took a week and generated some interesting search history at one point... I didn't realize that Zona 1 was so damn large, I thought it was smaller. As Zona 1 comprises most of what there's to see and do, the rest of the articles would indeed contain very little of interest. Let's reject the official districts then, they aren't as prominently used as in Paris anyway. I made a hasty picture of what I meant earlier and will upload it right away. One central district with Duomo in the middle including everything inside the "inner ring road" (the light yellow streets), one with the POIs in the direction of the railway station (northeast), one with everything towards Sforzesco, the stadium and the fair centers (west) and then the rest (south). I think it would leave a fair share of See, Do, Eat, Drink and Sleep in every section. Then we can always create another article for things that are really far out, but I'm not sure if it is necessary. ϒpsilon (talk) 05:52, 20 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

So, here's that map. I picked the borders a bit arbitrarily, the light yellow ring streets for the center, the tram tracks going straight north, the road to Linate airport straight to the east and Navigilio Grande to the southwest. What do you think? ϒpsilon (talk) 06:02, 20 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for taking the time to draw the picture, this makes your idea very clear. I could agree with having the article for the historic core cover a smaller area as your propose. The area extending from Milano Centrale through Repubblica does seem to possess a reasonably cohesive and separate character to me, I was thinking about it as a core for another district as well. As to the other two, anchoring one around the Castello Sforzesco and the old Fiera seems reasonable. I don't know much about the South of Milan, but the former two make dividing the outer districts in three reasonable.

We do need to give some thought to actual borders in due course though. For one, I believe that the border between South and West should better run along the railway tracks, where by definition no POIs are located, as we already have POIs on both sides of the Naviglio Grande and it would be a it confusing to have some of them in one district and some in the other. We could also consider having the border run along Via Solari, as there seem to be no POIs along it (if there indeed aren't any, not just that we haven't covered it yet.

I still do believe we could use a fifth district for the "faraway things", as any "Get in/around" information for the North, South and West articles that would be useful for the POIs close to the centre would be rather irrelevant for the POIs on the ouskirts, and such lone POIs would make maintaining a legible and reasonably-sized map for each of those three districts a challenge. Within the outer article, it is quite obvious every POI/cluster of POIs would need its separate transportation directions, but I guess we can manage that.

At any rate - GREAT job, great to see it progressing that fast. Let me know how I can help so that I don't start stepping on your toes and doing more damage than help. PrinceGloria (talk) 07:52, 20 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Great that you liked it! I thought like this; "standing on Piazza Duomo, in what main directions could a tourist go?" and came up with Centrale FS, Sforzesco and Navigli.

So the border would continue along the railroad to northwest from Garibaldi? That sounds reasonable as it's visible and straight. For the southwest border I realized a few minutes after uploading the map that using the canal isn't such a good idea after all and had my eyes on Via Andrea Solari as well...

Looking at the map, it's actually not a bad idea to make an "Outer Milan" article. The question is where to put the border; would the red "ring road" maybe be a good solution?

So, what I plan to do is: 1. once the districts are defined I'll make mockup articles in my user space (for the districts and one copy of the current Milan article to remove them from), 2. move the POIs there and 3. eventually when everything is done move everything to the main space. It's not something that can be done in an hour, so if you feel like and especially if I'm not around, feel free to continue. And a map will be needed as well. ϒpsilon (talk) 08:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

BTW, we have an nearly empty Milan (province) article. Could that one maybe be re-used as a suburban article? Yes, some POIs outside the red ring are probably officially in Milan proper but... ϒpsilon (talk) 09:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Given how empty all provincial articles within Lombardy and the Lombardy article itself is, I would actually propose to merge all of them into Lombardy and give each province a short one-two sentence introduction before listing its destinations. That said, a common article for both outlying POIs within Milan and ones within the province but out of the city might make sense. PrinceGloria (talk) 10:12, 20 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

So, now the listings for individual places are moved to the district articles and Saqib been kind and made a map. This is going forward really well. ϒpsilon (talk) 21:14, 21 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Now that's seriously brilliant! I hope I can help by starting to give the districts some meaningful, and hopefully not entirely irrelevant, pointless and wrong leads. I also don't want to rain on what is a brilliant parade of initiative, dedication and collaboration, but I just hope the map is not wrong - we expressly do NOT cover the outlying parts of Milan city proper in the district articles (they are covered in "suburban Milan"), so we may want to overlay the coverage spans over the outline of Milan to give readers the idea where to find info on each particular area.

We also may want to include some of the more important points of orientation on the general map - Malpensa (I know it's actually beyond the province, but it would be worthwhile to highlight how small the province really is and where Malpensa is), Linate and Milano Centrale, old Fiera and Rho, as well as some of the cities in the Milan Province (don't really know which ones, as all of importance that come to my mind as Milan's suburbs, apart from Rho, turn out to be beyond the province's borders as well). Finally, I think it could be worthwhile to include the autostradas to help make the map even more useful.

It's easier said and done, I know, so please believe me I would have simply done that rather than sit and share wisecrack remarks if I believed I could. Let me get down to writing articles and I hope the above is of some value - and that you guys do feel how much I appreciate your brilliant work! PrinceGloria (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Actually Saqib made the map rather surprisingly last night (a positive surprise, of course :)), and I just had time to give him a few tips of what more I'd like to see on the map (that was railways, highways and Linate) and now he has added them. I think it looks quite OK and don't see any major errors in how he has drawn the districts other than the West district going perhaps a bit too far to the west (Saqib, if you open the dynamic map and choose the Mapnik (OSM) layer, the border we've chosen to the suburbs is the red ring road; we aren't using official districts). For points outside of Milan proper I think we should wait and see what's decided in the current discussion about maps and subdivision of Lombardy to avoid duplications and ambiguousness. I'm not sure either what suburbs should be marked on the map, matter of fact on many city district maps single suburbs aren't marked unless they have their own article. Malpensa Airport would likely be useful to include, though. ϒpsilon (talk) 07:03, 22 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I didn't understand Ypsi. You want me to change the boundaries of outer districts (South, West and North) or boundary of suburb district? If you're talking about the outer districts then it will decrease the size of those 3 outer districts very much but if you're talking of suburb district, then its a good idea as currently the suburb district on our map is actually the official province of Milan. --Saqib (talk) 11:48, 22 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

It is the outer districts I'm talking about, like in my one-minute picture shows. I would strongly suggest not to depict the whole of Milan province in this map. How about showing just a portion of Suburban Milan (e.g. in the same way that [Gyeonggi which surrounds Seoul is depicted here])? ϒpsilon (talk) 12:37, 22 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I agree with you on the boundary of suburb district. Btw, I created boundaries of central and outer districts based on the official Milan zones but since you want to change the borders of outer districts. I think we need to create a new map and trace it using this map. --Saqib (talk) 12:53, 22 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

(reindent) Yes, me and Prince discussed earlier in this thread where the borders should go. BTW compared to the Seoul example above, the Suburb area of the map should be colored. ϒpsilon (talk) 13:01, 22 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Just two BTWs, if I may butt in:

1. Not that it matters much, but I would not call the outer district "Suburban", but rather "Outer Milan". Quite a bit of it is just as urban as the rest of Milan (this is a huge city after all), it's just that what is there is farther away from the centre. I would advocate for "Outer Milan" or "Outer districts of Milan" or something in the mold of that
2. We may want to leave out the entire province (pending a separate discussion @ Talk:Lombardy, but I would really be for including Malpensa in a to-scale way in order to portray where it actually is. I recently spent 3 hours on the road getting to Malpensa, and I have to conclude that truly appreciating the distance (and traffic jams) can be of essence to travellers who will with high probability be using this airport.

Yours truly, PrinceGloria (talk) 14:27, 22 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

PS. I hate to be nitpicky, but isn't the A50 (the autostrada encircling Milan from the west) missing from the map as it is?

OK, so there are a couple of things that we need to change on the map; so here's a handy list:

1. Centro Storico - Here we discussed changing the name of Central Milan to Centro Storico (Italian for "Historical Center" or Old town)
2. South and West - at the same talk page Prince proposed to merge South and West if they turn out to be too short. I would prefer to try to expand them first, for instance with material from the Italian version, but for my part that will have to wait until the weekend. The Italian version does have a ton of suggestions (with tens of links to an external guide! :O that however has a helpful Google Map embedded to show where the sights are), and I think I can squeeze out a couple of notable and interesting sights and activities to expand those articles to a decent size.
3. Rename Suburban Milan to Outer Milan per above ("Outer districts of Milan" is a bit too much, I'd say)
4. North will get a new name which first needs to be decided upon.
5. Range of the map? The draft I made on Jan 22 are based from a screenshot of the dynamic map at zoom level 13, and motorway A50 does not show up except for a few sections. One has to zoom up to level 11 to get it completely visible.
6. How should we show Milan's international airport Malpensa Airport on the map? I would suggest an airport icon, name of the airport, arrow and distance (40km) beside the road in the northwestern direction.

So, there's no need to rush with the map. ϒpsilon (talk) 13:34, 25 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I've now expanded the South and West articles. For the North article, how would "Porta Garibaldi and Venezia" sound (referring to Porta Venezia in the northeast that also gives name to a district), PrinceGloria? Or "Centrale, Porta Garibaldi and Venezia"? Or in correct Italian "Centrale, Porte Garibaldi and Venezia"? Or..? And what's your opinion about the zoom level of the map? I think zoom level 13 used in the screenshot above is OK and if a wider screenshot is used, more of A50 becomes visible.

Except the map there isn't IMO much left that has to be done before we can complete the districtification i.e. move the districts to the mainspace. ϒpsilon (talk) 13:43, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Well done YPSI. The article is definitely very much improved after the districtification. BTW, do you think the Milan is at guide status now? Let me know whether you'll do the map or I? --Saqib (talk) 15:29, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, Saqib :). Milan might be at guide status but I'm not 100% sure. I could actually try to make the map (to get a little practice). ϒpsilon (talk) 15:44, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I am not quite sure about that long a name, but this may have something to do with this being one of a series of long days for me. Which may also explain why I am not getting what you mean about zoom level 13, i.e. what do you want to use this zoom level for. At any rate, great job! PrinceGloria (talk) 18:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Grazie, Principe! I'm going to use a screenshot from the dynamic map as a base for the map. In the dynamic map the number in the upper left corner indicates the zoom/magnification level (1=the whole world visible, 18=e.g. Duomo fills the whole screen) and how the screenshot looks depends on it. I'll try to make the A50 visible, or at least a part of it.

For the name: how about "Garibaldi(-Centrale?)-Venezia" (without Porta). Because shouldn't we somehow indicate that the area around Corso Buenos Aires all the way to the road to Linate are included the article as well? Another thing how about changing the name of West to e.g. "Fiera-Cardona" and South to e.g. "Navigli-Porta Romana"? ϒpsilon (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I have a day of terrible indecisiveness, so I started thinking whether 1) we really need to include the area that does not strictly fall into the "Centro Direzionale"/skyscraper area in that district and 2) whether we really need tho force names upon those districts, perhaps "Northern Centre" would do. I guess it's better for somebody else (perhaps Italian? Andyrom75 is Italian I believe) should make the call. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:04, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Andy couldn't help, and somewhere I asked Lkcl it about it (could swear it was in the Lombardy map discussion but it wasn't) but he didn't reply. So let's keep North(ern Centre), West and South, then. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm from Brescia, so I am not a very expert on Milano, but I'll try to help you. What do you exactly need? thanks --Lkcl it (talk) 19:58, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

OK, the situation is this: we've already divided Milano into districts like this (you can have a look at the map draft above): 1. Centro Storico (everything within about 1.5-2 km from Duomo), 2. North (Porta Garibaldi, Centrale FS, and the around Corso Buenos Aires), 3. West (Parco Sempione, the old Fiera), 4. South (Navigli, Porta Romana) and 5. Outer Milan (everything outside the yellow "ring road" of streets on the map). We "tourists" think this division sounds reasonable, but is there anything that you find completely weird wrong? (hopefully there's not :P) ϒpsilon (talk) 20:10, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I have already seen Saqib's map and I think that your division is ok. --Lkcl it (talk) 20:14, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

That's great! Grazie! ϒpsilon (talk) 20:17, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

You're welcome. (P.s. you asked me Here) --Lkcl it (talk) 20:19, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

<indent reset>Ciao Lkcl, grazie mille for chipping in! I guess what I meant when I asked for somebody Italian (and it's great to hear you're from Lombardy!) to weight in is to determine the names - I do believe the division makes sense for Wikivoyage, but I would like to give the districts more meaningful names, especially that "North", "South" and "West" can be misleading now that we have decided to keep the extremities of Milan in a separate "Outer Milan" article.
So, in short, can you help us decide on good names for the "South", "West" and "North" districts? PrinceGloria (talk) 06:04, 28 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

The map is soon finished (in 2.5 hours! I'm starting to get the routine of map making now). So what should we name the districts? I'm absolutely fine with North, South and West.

Porta Garibaldi-Venezia, Fiera-Cardona and Navigli-Porta Romana, are they really that bad? I mean, they're all both names of landmarks and districts around those landmarks.

Or if we would revert the name of the outer district to "Suburban"and still use N, S and W for those three city districts..? ϒpsilon (talk) 17:17, 28 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm looking forward to see your map YPSI. I'll say best wishes to you and I'm glad we got another cartographer on-wiki. If I'm not wrong, I think Southern or Northern is usually used as unofficial names than South or North. --Saqib (talk) 17:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

So, I made the map yesterday and uploaded it. Had some problems with getting the railways to look as they do e.g. in the map of Munich, and when I now look at them they look like black polkagris or worse, even though I followed the advice here. Saqib, do you have a couple of minutes..?

Anyways, I plan to move Milan and it's districts to the main namespace tomorrow. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Well done YPSI. The map is detailed. Sure, please upload the SVG version and I'll do it. Btw, frankly speaking I don't like the orange colour of outer district. --Saqib (talk) 19:51, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Looking forward to using this. As of yesterday, Milan has joined the list of places I am going in July. Texugo (talk) 19:52, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Happy travelling Texugo. YPSI, one concern. Are you going to move and replace the Milan article as well? I think moving the Milan in your user namespace can be controversial since because of the WT attribution in the footer.

Actually I uploaded the svg version yesterday, but didn't add the link from the .png to the .svg - now that's fixed. For the orange outer district; first I experimented with darker colors and then the smaller roads weren't visible. I admit, such a big orange area makes one think that the city is in the middle of a desert or something. You can change it as well if you feel like.

I'm not going to move the whole page, just empty the current Milan article of content and replace it with my version. I did that with Helsinki too and the footer with the attribution is still there.

Enjoy your trip, Texugo. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:08, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Done. --Saqib (talk) 20:11, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, now it looks much better. Yesterday I also tried to use turquoise for the outer districts but for some reason the small grey roads disappeared into the background... ϒpsilon (talk) 20:23, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

<indent reset>Let me be the lazy bum spoilsport here, and after I offer my most sincere and heartfelt thanks and congratulations to you, Ypsilon, I feel I need to share with you some comments I have about the map you created:

1. Orange is indeed a bit too aggressive for me. I guess light green would have worked better on so large an area. Since the gray roads aren't named (not that there is place for it in that map), highlighting them is of little assistance to travellers, I believe, so if they get in the way of less aggressive colouring, I'd go for less aggressive colours and no gray roads.
2. Now I know what you meant about the zoom level. I am not so sure we need level 13 here, perhaps we may be better off with a slightly lower zoom level to show how much of Milan is really in the central districts we highlight. At that zoom level, the vestigial parts of autostradas are only confusing rather than helpful in my views.
3. If we want to give a better idea of where in the centre of Milan the district borders are, we may want to add a smaller lower-zoom-level map to show the entirety of Milan. If we stick to the horizontal map format you chose, splitting it in two may allow to do them side-by-side.
4. I am quite convinced "Cadorna" is spelt like that, not "Cardona". Since you spell it consistently the latter way, it may be that I am indeed wrong, so perhaps you could double-check as well.
5. I am not sure we need to call each railway station a "station" in the map, it is quite obvious by the railway symbol what they are. We might however want to use "Milano Centrale", as this will probably be encountered by travellers much more often than "Central Railway Station". I would also support making the descriptions larger (perhaps easier to do when we make them shorter by cutting off "station"), and they may prove more legible if rendered in black and without the bold type in this particular font
6. Same goes for district names - they seem very small and hard to read. I would make them more prominent. If we leave out the gray roads or make them fade into background more, it could be easier to accomplish.
7. The blue Navigli seems very intrusive to me given the overall pastel shading of the map and appears to be something else, as I wouldn't expect a body of water to be so prominently highlighted when everything else is subdued.
8. I would also support marking the location of:
   1. Duomo
   2. Fieramilanocity (old Fiera)
   3. New Fiera (if we include the "lower zoom level" map)

I do realize that some of the above may go against the general mapmaking standards within Wikivoyage, but I guess by examining this particular map, I have found them to be actually ineffective. If a map for Milan is eventually created using alternative principles, it could be then used as an exemplar for updating the general standards. Again, pardon my armchair activism here - I indeed find my remarks above of value and indeed cannot even get a start at mapmaking at this very moment. PrinceGloria (talk) 20:40, 29 January 2014 (UTC) PS. Texugo, if this is your first time in the north of Italy, do make sure to visit someplace else besides Milan, like Bergamo, Bologna or Verona, to get a better impression of Italy. With all due respect to Milan, it may not be the most charming place in Italy.Reply

Thanks again, Prince :). Saqib already changed the color of Outer Milan. And yeah, the map is a result of following the map making advice, template and color palette to the letter . Including the deep blue for water bodies. Finally the station's name is Cadorna now when I checked it from Wikipedia so you're absolutely right. I've always remembered it with the r in the wrong place.

Sure, we can include the places you mentioned. And make the map a square as it is in my drafts above; I included the motorways because you suggested it but I'm happy to narrow the map.

BTW I'm not able to draw perfect looking maps (yet). It's my third city district map and other than that I've made a couple of easy to make islands maps. If you want to make maps you need a ton of nerves and need to know that your first map will take a full week if you've never drawn vector graphics before (that was my experience with Helsinki last summer). ϒpsilon (talk) 21:36, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

All right, now it's time to publish the districtified Milan. BTW I've also updated the map. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:52, 30 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Well done and keep it up YPSI. You've done a great job and I appreciate your efforts you recently putting in improving article. I think one more award is going to decorate your talk page soon. --Saqib (talk) 12:28, 1 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much, Saqib! You're also doing a splendid job here on WV — especially with destinations in Pakistan. ϒpsilon (talk) 12:33, 1 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

Seems like only very high-end restaurants are mentioned. Someone should probably go ahead and separate them into different categories according to price range. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 93.50.3.80 (talk • contribs)

Swept in from the pub

Mates, i started the discussion on meta https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikivoyage/Lounge#multi lingual display for Destination of the month to see if there is interest in an interlingual DotM. The first proposal from the Italian community is Milan for the Expo 2015 (May-Oct). PrinceGloria proposal in Lisbon. Any feedback on that? jan (talk) 12:38, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Sounds good to me in general, but for our purposes Expo 2015 would probably fit better as an FTT. See Previous Featured travel topics#Honorary where it's said that Expo 2005 would have been FTT if the feature had existed at the time. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 12:51, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

If Spanish community is interested. Mexico City during Wikimania 2015. --Saqib (talk) 13:50, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Saqib, I think Mexico City has the potential to be an excellent interlingual collaboration, and being fluent in Spanish, I could serve as liaison. But I do have some doubts. I don't poke my head into es: very often, and I may very well be wrong about this, but at last check it was pretty much a ghost town over there. Can we speak meaningfully of "collaborating" with a community of one or two active contributors - especially when it's an open question whether Zerabat or B1mbo are willing to act as liaisons to en: or have the on-the-ground knowledge of Mexico City that would be necessary to improve es:'s article? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:35, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

I swear I posted this last night. Anyway, I was going to say the same thing of pt: with regard to the suggestion of Lisbon, since pt: is basically, well, me. Plus an occasional useful edit by an IP address or one-time user once every few days. And I've never been to Lisbon so I'm afraid I wouldn't be much help. Texugo (talk) 12:05, 20 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

André i see your point with FTT but i assume that on Italian wv they will feature the city and the expo because it seems to be important for Italy. Maybe we can use their local knowledge and run the city as Dotm and the expo as FTT. Just an idea as the whole expo runs about six months. jan (talk) 12:45, 20 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Milan is certainly a worthwhile destination for travellers. I would not be opposed to a scenario such as you describe. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 12:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

André, the German wv admin User:Balou46 indicated interest in collaborating for Milan. So far no other proposals. I think the Italian wv community is likely to take the lead on the expo and maybe i would take the lead on Milan. I keep en updated on the discussion and feel free to particicpate on meta if you want, too. jan (talk) 12:12, 21 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Right now, the Milan guide is Usable in en.wikivoyage. Until it's a Guide, it is ineligible for a DotM nomination under this site's rules. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:18, 21 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Ikan thank you for your posts in both pubs. The main obstacle for Milan are the suburbs, the central districts can be easily turned in strong usables or guides. I can read some french and italian but i'm far from conversational, so users like User:Andyrom75 would be needed to translate. It's a year, so about four months before nomination. I assume it could work out if we collaborate. Therefore your comment on cotm is a good idea. jan (talk) 15:40, 23 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

My Italian is not bad and neither is my French. I have yet to look at either version's Milan article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi, everyone. You can see the discussion about the possible inter-lingual feature of Milan above, but it has to be a Guide to be eligible for nomination for Destination of the Month. More discussion about the article at my user talk page. How are things progressing, and what do you all feel are the top priorities in improving all the Milan district guides to at least Usable status and this article to Guide status (keeping in mind that all district guides have to be at least Usable for this article to be a Guide)? Shall we set a target of bringing this up to Guide status by December? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:43, 15 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm very busy: I have also to add information to the Italian article, but I'll help also here. --Lkcl it _(Talk) 17:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

If I may, I would like to propose a table where we can list and update statuses of all the aspects important to bring the district article to a reasonable state (more than just usable or guide, something we do not have to be ashamed of to flaunt in pre-Expo season). Below are aspects I find important. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:17, 16 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Aspect	Centro Storico	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Map	Well, we need one	Needs one	No map	No map	Outer Milan
Banner	This is not the best banner, we need a less fuzzy and better cropped one	I'd say it's OK	Very creative	Quite awful	Unusual and OK
Pictures	Far too few for that many sights, too many vertically-oriented (eat up space for more pics that can be more illustrative of a POI)	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Lead	Acceptable	North	West	South	None
Understand	Must be written and include information on the history and orientation (major streets etc.)	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Get in	Totally not useful. We must explain how to get to the centre from Malpensa, Linate, Bergamo and all major railway stations.	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Get around	This is a wide area - we need to explain when and where to walk, and where taking a bus, tram or metro is more advisable	North	West	South	Outer Milan
See	Will have to review listings to see if OK, but perhaps an introductory paragraph for the entire section and one for each of the subsections would help get a better idea how to navigate this large number of POIs.	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Do	Not much, I guess there's more to do than that! We seem to totally not mention the fashion week.	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Buy	Needs info and categorizing. Excelsior Milano and Antonia are missing for sure.	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Eat	There are surely more than 9 options worth mentioning, and especially not the most expensive ones - those are easy to come by :) Introduction and explanation on what to expect, what's on offer and how to find a good place to eat is a must	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Drink	Exhaustive intro on nightlife (and daylife - coffee culture) in Milan should be included, listings perhaps categorized. We seem to have quite few cafes vs. nightclubs and bars	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Sleep	Some introduction of what to expect and whether one should sleep there or other districts should be included. I also believe there are more than 1 budget accommodation options.	North	West	South	Outer Milan
Other sections	I believe there is free Internet in Milan, we should give details in "Connect"	North	West	South	Outer Milan

[Edit conflict]We're all volunteers here, so any help is always appreciated, and this is not just about you. Bringing this article up to Guide status can be expected to require more than one person's efforts. Thanks for your help, Lkcl it and PrinceGloria. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:21, 16 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

As far as i know, to rent a car-sharing car you have to own an italian driving license.

I don't know if the car-sharing information can be of some use to most of the visiting people, since they cannot subscribe to the service. —The preceding comment was added by Gerryino (talk • contribs)

It should be an easy thing to establish on the website of the car sharing company.

'As far as I know', EU licenses are valid throughout the EU.

I carshare in Australia, and any valid license is fine. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:31, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes a EU driving license is valid throughout the EU provide you are not resident in another country than where it was registered for more than a year. --Traveler100 (talk) 05:44, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

In most countries I know of, the problem is not the driving license, as per the above, but rather the requirement of having a bank account with regular inflows and/or a credit card registered in a given country. Which is a problem for most tourists. PrinceGloria (talk) 08:20, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

I don't know how this works, so my question would be: Let's say you are from France or Germany, so a fellow Euro Zone country. Would that requirement be any problem, just because you are from a foreign country? If not, it's not necessarily useless to all foreign tourists. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:55, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Again, it would - Italian car-sharing companies cannot easily charge your German or Dutch account, Eurozone notwithstanding. They need an account or credit card with a bank in their own country, and you usually have to present a bank statement to prove you have regular inflows to that account that would cover eventual fees. PrinceGloria (talk) 11:12, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Think need to check the conditions of the sites but Car2Go is a German company with outlets in other cities, such as Milan. Also new IBAN rules in Europe make cross boarder payments much easier. I have a EC bank charge card (VPay) that I have used in a number of countries with no cross boarder issues or changes. Having said that need to check the companies fine print to check on residency restrictions, that has got me with a few transactions. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:02, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Looking at the Car2Go site, if you register in Germany you need a valid driving license (i.e. legal to drive in Germany) and you can use the service anywhere in Europe. However it looks like you need to have a German bank account if you register in Germany. So much for EU cross boarder commerce. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

So it may be a requirement to register with an Italian bank account. I doubt it would be legal however to deny another valid EU Driving license as the original thread statement suggested. Andrewssi2 (talk) 19:55, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Actually it is about registering with an international car sharing company in a county you have a bank account and probably residency, then being able to take a car in another country. Interesting point on legality in EU about insisting on licence from specific country but when I have questions companies on such things in the past have not got far (but then never though worth getting lawyers involved. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:08, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

I believe Car2Go is the only company so far that offers members access to services in all cities they serve, regardless of where they originally registered (and are billed). PrinceGloria (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

The idea to feature Milan this month for the opening of the Expo fell through, but this does not mean we should not sustain the effort to improve the article(s). In September, Milan will host not only the Expo, but also the usual Fashion Week. Despite the anxiety about staggering European DoTMs, we now have (tentatively) Łódź for August and Manchester for September. Knowing Łódź I can attest that the article is far from ready to be featured, and being the "Polish Manchester" I do find it easy to argue why they shouldn't be featured back-to-back.

So, if we can improve our guides to Milan further, I see a chance for swapping places with Manchester and being featured in September. Do we go for it? PrinceGloria (talk) 05:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

I am not sure I like the numerous comparisons with Rome and other cities (it also includes the laughable indirect statement that Venice is typical of anything - Venice is Venice and its sui generis nature is the point why people go there). On a totally unrelated note, that section (and parts of get in and get around) are also where we have the most "copied" content... Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:30, 24 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

To the right is a selection of possible page banners. Both are far from really nice. Maybe someone finds a better one. --Renek78 (talk) 19:07, 28 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Added a third and fourth one. Banner 4 is my favourite and I would propose to use it as a page banner. --Renek78 (talk) 13:49, 17 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

I don't like #3 but I really like #4. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:16, 17 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

#2 feels a little off-balance and the building in the current doesn't fit the banner ratio of 7:1. So yes, my favorite is #4. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:17, 17 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Number 2 is best to my eyes. If I have to go to a 2nd choice, it would be #4. #3 is so distorted in orientation that it makes me reel. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:53, 18 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Number 5 is a good addition, and I prefer it to #4. I can't pick between #2 and #5. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:04, 19 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Ikan Kekek and Selfie City, I plunged forward and changed the page banner to banner 5. If you think that this was too early please revert the edit. Thanks, --Renek78 (talk) 07:47, 3 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

I'm late to the discussion, but I like 5. Thanks Renek78. Ground Zero (talk) 08:09, 3 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

No dispute from me, as I was in favor of either #2 or #5. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:16, 4 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

Should this article have routeboxes? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:36, 2 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

I have to say I'm not a fan of routeboxes, but feel free to add them if you like. --ϒpsilon (talk) 17:57, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Why not? And I can't because I don't know the routes going through here nor how routeboxes should look for Italy... Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:43, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

They just give out a limited amount of information and it's hard to know what cities to put there (one or two nearby places and then the end of the road which might be very far away or some major city halfway, and the same in the other direction). To get a better oversight travelers are better off using a map instead, for instance our dynamic maps. That's at least what I would do.

Routeboxes are also pretty well hidden on the page, for instance when I read the question of yours I seriously thought for a second "what's a route box? - oh yeah, that little stuff at the end of the page that a few articles have, aren't they still experimental, or did they get approved?". Though now when I know to look for them, I notice that they are more widespread than I remembered.

Also, while roads and their numbers are fairly stable, and can be easily checked up from a map, train services need to be harvested from schedules and are prone to change. Given that the routeboxes aren't that noticable, if the train services change and someone updates the Get in section accordingly, they might not be aware that there is a routebox with train lines that needs to be updated too.

That said, apparently some people find routeboxes useful and they do give the end of the page some color, which can be a good reason to add them. Just copy paste the code from some city article that has a routebox, look at a map and replace the cities and the road numbers for instance with the ones found here. Or I can do it at some point. ϒpsilon (talk) 09:49, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

I have added routeboxes with motorways. --Lkcl it _(Talk) 20:31, 25 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. We now need another routebox for Frecciarossa and/or Italo services. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:41, 25 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

The problem is that they don't have a logo for each line: FrecciaRossa and Italo may mean everithing: Brescia-Napoli, Venice-Salerno, Torin-Salerno... --Lkcl it _(Talk) 20:47, 25 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Have a look at Limburg an der Lahn for how I solved the problem with the broadly analogous ICE. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:52, 25 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Due to copyright problems on commons there aren't frecciarossa and italo logos (or at least I wasn't able to find them). I suggest to use for regional lines (i.e. operated by trenord: RE1 Laveno-Varese-Saronno-Milan RE2 Bergamo-Milan RE4 Domodossola-Milan RE5 Varese-Milano RE6 Verona-Brescia-Milan ... [1]) in total 10 Regional Express lines and for frecciarossa Turin-Milan-Venice-Trieste Milan-Bari and Turin-Milan-Florence-Rome-Naples-Salerno. Or is better to add only frecciarossa services? --Lkcl it _(Talk) 12:33, 26 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Stazione Garibaldi di Milano, veduta generale.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:47, 1 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

No FoP in Italy; do we want this? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 11:56, 1 June 2023 (UTC)Reply