# Is Isola a Good Area to Stay in Milan? Map & Verdict Verdict: Recommended. Book here without thinking about it. Interactive map: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/isola Every Milan district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan.md A former working-class pocket behind the tracks, now the district under the Bosco Verticale. Good food, real evenings, and a thirty-five-minute walk from anything historic. Facts: 35 min walk to the Duomo; 50 min to the airport; price €€€; best for food, couples, solo travellers, longer stays; lines M5. Isola sits north of the railway and the Porta Nuova towers, close enough to have been rebuilt around them and far enough to have kept its own streets. Piazza Minniti and the streets off it hold the concentration of restaurants and bars that the centre has largely priced out, and the crowd in them is Milanese rather than visiting. It is well placed for a second visit and awkward for a first. The metro station Isola on M5 is inside the district and Porta Garibaldi - M2, M5, the Passante and the fast trains to Turin and Rome - is five minutes south, so the network is excellent. On foot, the Duomo is thirty-five minutes and there is nothing on the way except the tracks. Rooms cost less than Brera for more space, and the district is quiet on weeknights. Set against that: apart from the Cimitero Monumentale a few streets west, there is nothing here that anyone would call a sight, the Porta Nuova side is a building site more often than not, and the weekend evenings around Piazza Minniti are loud enough to matter if your window faces it. What works: - M5 inside the district and Porta Garibaldi, a main-line station, five minutes away - Restaurants and bars aimed at people who live here, not at visitors - More room for the money than Brera or Duomo - Quiet on weeknights, and the Cimitero Monumentale is a short walk west What does not: - Thirty-five minutes on foot to the Duomo, with nothing to see on the way - No sights in the district itself beyond the Bosco Verticale from below - Piazza Minniti is loud on Friday and Saturday nights - Building work around Porta Nuova has been continuous for a decade Hotels in Isola: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fss%3DIsola%252C%2520Milan%26latitude%3D45.48910711052631%26longitude%3D9.189691831578946%26nflt%3Ddistance%253D1000%26group_adults%3D2%26no_rooms%3D1 ## Other districts in Milan - [Duomo](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/duomo): Recommended. The whole core inside the old canal ring, not just the cathedral square: the Castello, Sant'Ambrogio and the Colonne di San Lorenzo are all this district. You pay Milan's highest rates and walk to everything. - [Brera](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/brera): Recommended. Ten minutes north of the Duomo, cobbled and low-rise, with the Pinacoteca and the best-looking streets in Milan. It is also the district that fills up loudest on a Friday. - [Magenta & San Vittore](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/magenta-san-vittore): Recommended. Corso Magenta and Sant'Ambrogio, ten minutes west of the Duomo. The Last Supper is in it, and it is the quietest central district in Milan. - [Sarpi & Chinatown](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/sarpi): Mixed. Milan's Chinatown, on a pedestrianised Via Paolo Sarpi fifteen minutes north-west of the Duomo. The best cheap eating in the city, and no sights at all. - [Pagano](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/pagano): Mixed. Corso Vercelli's shopping street and the wealthy blocks behind it, one metro stop past Magenta. Safe, dull, and cheaper than it looks. - [Ticinese](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/ticinese): Recommended. The strip running south from the Colonne di San Lorenzo to the Darsena. Close enough to walk to the Duomo in under twenty minutes, close enough to the canals to skip the taxi home. - [Navigli](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/navigli): Mixed. Two canals lined with bars, and the best evening in Milan if you are out in it rather than asleep above it. Half an hour on foot from the Duomo and short of daytime reasons to be here. - [Guastalla & Porta Vittoria](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/guastalla): Recommended. The quiet blocks south-east of the Duomo: the Besana rotunda, the botanical garden and the courthouse. Ten minutes in, and nothing loud in it. - [Porta Romana](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/porta-romana): Recommended. The old Roman gate and the streets behind it, twenty minutes south-east of the Duomo. Where Milanese eat, with Fondazione Prada at the far end. - [Porta Venezia & Corso Buenos Aires](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/porta-venezia): Recommended. A shopping avenue with three metro lines under it and Milan's best value rooms along it. Book the Porta Venezia end; the discount at the Loreto end is the discount for a reason. - [Centrale](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/centrale): Mixed. Milan's densest block of cheap hotels, wrapped around the country's second-busiest station. Two metro lines, every train, and the one part of the centre that people are warned about after dark. - [Loreto](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/loreto): Avoid. The cheap end of Corso Buenos Aires, on an M1/M2 interchange. Wikivoyage names it among the areas that can be unsafe at night, and the rooms are priced accordingly. - [San Siro](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/san-siro): Avoid. Cheap rooms 5 km west of the centre, next to a stadium you will visit once and a racecourse you will not. One metro line, and an hour and a quarter on foot to the Duomo.