10 min
50 min
M4 · tram 9 · tram 12 · tram 19
9.8 / km²
8
2
619
+19% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Guastalla & Porta Vittoria
Guastalla is the quarter inside the old walls between San Babila and Porta Vittoria: the Guastalla gardens, the Rotonda della Besana, the university hospital, the Palazzo di Giustizia and the streets of nineteenth-century blocks around them. It is central Milan without the shopping crowds, and most visitors never learn it has a name.
That anonymity is the reason to book it. The Duomo is a ten-minute walk, Porta Romana's restaurants start at the southern edge, the new M4 line stops twice inside the district, and rooms cost less than the same distance north into Brera or west into Magenta. The Besana rotunda and the botanical garden are two of the few genuinely quiet outdoor places in the centre.
The trade is that this is a working district of offices, courts and hospitals. It empties at the weekend, the courthouse blocks are grim to walk past after dark even though nothing happens there, and there is no sight here that anyone flies to Milan for. You are buying ten quiet minutes from the Duomo, which is a good thing to buy and not an exciting one.
What works
- About 10 minutes on foot to the Duomo, through streets with no crowds
- M4 stops twice inside the district and Porta Vittoria has trains
- Cheaper than Brera or Magenta at the same distance from the centre
- The Besana rotunda and the botanical garden are quiet and free
What does not
- Courts, offices and hospitals - the district empties at weekends
- No sight of its own that would draw anybody here
- Little open late; dinner means walking to Porta Romana or the centre
- The Palazzo di Giustizia blocks are bleak to walk past after dark
Suburban trains run less often than Metro trains (usually every 30 minutes or 1 hour) but, as some lines share tracks and stations, you can expect as many as 10 trains per hour in central Milan between Lancetti and Porta Vittoria stations.