20 min
50 min
M2 · M5 · tram 12 · tram 14
28.3 / km²
3
3
1,121
−8% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Sarpi & Chinatown
Sarpi is the wedge between the Castello and the Monumentale cemetery, built around Via Paolo Sarpi - a pedestrian street that has been Milan's Chinese quarter since the 1920s and is now the densest run of Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese kitchens in Italy.
As a base it is unglamorous and very practical. The Duomo is a twenty-minute walk or two stops, Brera and Garibaldi are next door, rooms cost noticeably less than either, and you can eat extremely well for fifteen euros at eleven at night, which in central Milan is close to impossible.
The drawbacks are honest ones. There is nothing to see here beyond the Monumentale cemetery on the edge, the architecture is plain post-war blocks rather than anything you photograph, and Via Sarpi itself is busy and loud until late. The nearest metro is Monumentale on M5 or Moscova on M2, both a five to ten minute walk from most of the district - closer to a tram city than a metro one.
What works
- Via Paolo Sarpi is pedestrianised and full of good, cheap kitchens
- About 20 minutes on foot to the Duomo, with Brera in between
- Rooms cost well below Brera and Garibaldi for the same distance in
- Food available late, which most of central Milan is not
What does not
- Nothing to see in the district except the Monumentale cemetery
- Post-war blocks - it is a plain-looking neighbourhood
- Metro is a 5 to 10 minute walk away at Monumentale or Moscova
- Via Sarpi is loud until late, and the flats above it hear it
Not as big or famous as the ones in London or New York, Milan does also have a Chinatown, dating from the 1920s.Main street is the Via Paolo Sarpi, which is mainly a pedestrian street.