20 min
55 min
M3 · tram 9 · tram 16
22.2 / km²
0
1
605
−4% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Porta Romana
Porta Romana runs from the Crocetta down Corso di Porta Romana to the gate itself and on towards Lodi: nineteenth-century blocks, the Rotonda della Besana, the university hospital, and Fondazione Prada in a converted distillery at the southern end.
This is the district Milanese recommend when they are not trying to impress you. It has the density of good restaurants and bars that Brera has, at about two thirds of the price and without the queues, and M3 puts the Duomo four minutes away and the Centrale station eight. Walking in takes twenty minutes down a straight, arcaded street.
The honest gaps: none of Milan's famous sights are here apart from Prada, the corso is a wide traffic road rather than anything picturesque, and the southern end towards Lodi TIBB gets progressively more ordinary and more industrial. Book the half inside the gate; anything advertised as Porta Romana but nearer Piazzale Lodi is a different district that shares a metro line.
What works
- M3 runs the length of it - four minutes to the Duomo, eight to Centrale
- The best restaurant density in Milan outside Brera, at lower prices
- Fondazione Prada is inside the district, at the southern end
- About 20 minutes on foot into the centre, all flat and arcaded
What does not
- Nothing on a first-timer's sightseeing list except Fondazione Prada
- Corso di Porta Romana is a wide, busy road with trams on it
- The Lodi end is ordinary and industrial, and listings blur the two
- Weekend nights on the corso are loud in the flats above
The name "Porta Romana" is used both to refer to the gate proper and to the surrounding district ("quartiere"), part of the Zone 4 administrative division of Milan (and bordering with zone 5), located south-east of the city centre.Porta Romana was the first and the main imperial entrance of the entire city of Milan, as it was the starting point of the road leading to Ancient Rome.