# Is Sarpi & Chinatown a Good Area to Stay in Milan? Map & Verdict Verdict: Mixed. Fine for some travellers, wrong for others. Interactive map: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/sarpi Every Milan district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan.md 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. Facts: 20 min walk to the Duomo; 50 min to the airport; price €€; best for food, budget, solo travellers, longer stays; lines M2, M5, tram 12, tram 14. 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 Hotels in Sarpi & Chinatown: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D7638%26dest_type%3Ddistrict%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. - [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. - [Isola](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-milan/isola): Recommended. 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. - [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.