Anywhere Italy

Drive time

10 towns closer to Milan than Milan's suburbs

Comuni within a 55 minute drive of Milan, closer in time than much of the city's own commuter belt at rush hour. 10 towns shown, nearest first.

At rush hour, parts of Milan's own hinterland take longer to reach than these towns do. Each sits within fifty five minutes of the city by road, which puts them inside the commute radius of half the Lombard workforce.

The difference is what you find on arrival: a lake shore, a moraine hill, a walled centro that never got absorbed into the sprawl. Same commuting time, different century.

  1. 1.Bergamo13 minBergamo · LombardyA two-city Lombard capital where a Venetian walled hilltown sits 85 meters above its modern twin on the plain, 45 kilometers northeast of Milan.
  2. 2.Capriate San Gervasio23 minBergamo · LombardyThe Bergamasco town that holds Crespi d'Adda, the late-nineteenth-century company village inscribed by UNESCO in 1995 as a model workers' settlement.
  3. 3.Sarnico32 minBergamo · LombardyA medieval lake town at the southern tip of Lago d'Iseo, where the Oglio leaves the lake and Liberty villas line the shore.
  4. 4.Gorgonzola37 minMilano · LombardyThe town that gave its name to the cheese — a 21,000-resident commune on the Naviglio della Martesana 24 km east of Milan, the documented birthplace of Gorgonzola DOP since AD 879 and now the eastern terminus of Milan's M2 metro line, with a Greenways cycling-route signal along the canal.
  5. 5.Predore38 minBergamo · LombardyA small lakeside village on the Bergamo shore of Lake Iseo, sitting on a 15,000-square-meter Roman villa with intact thermal baths underneath.

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  1. 6.San Pellegrino Terme38 minBergamo · LombardyA Liberty-era spa town in the Val Brembana — home of the San Pellegrino mineral water and a complete Art Nouveau ensemble of Grand Hotel, Casinò and thermal baths built between 1899 and 1907 around the original sulfur springs.
  2. 7.Iseo40 minBrescia · LombardyThe main town on the southeast shore of Lake Iseo, gateway to Monte Isola and the Franciacorta sparkling wine country.
  3. 8.Soncino44 minCremona · LombardyA walled borgo on the Oglio with the Sforza fortress of 1473 and the press that printed the first complete Hebrew Bible in 1488.
  4. 9.Clusone49 minBergamo · LombardyAt 648 meters in upper Val Seriana, capital of the macabre fresco and the 1583 planetary clock above its civic tower.
  5. 10.Lovere51 minBergamo · LombardyAn amphitheater town at the north end of Lake Iseo, in Borghi più belli since 2003, with Canova plasters inside the Accademia Tadini.

We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.

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One letter on Sundays. The week’s town, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

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