Milan Aquarium

Inside the Milan Aquarium: from Alpine streams to the Red Sea

At the Milan Aquarium the tank of the open sea crosses over the path like a bridge, so catsharks and rays swim right above your head. It’s the high point of a route that follows Italy’s waters, from Alpine streams down to 30 metres under the sea.

The tanks run in a ring, and you choose the direction. Turn right and you follow the River Adda from its source in the mountains to its mouth; turn left and you start from the sea. There are 22 tanks in all, ten of fresh water and twelve of salt water, holding more than 50 species.

The freshwater side has trout in a mountain torrent and tench in a reconstruction of Lake Como. Look for the sturgeon, which the aquarium calls a living fossil; one of the species here lives in estuaries, where rivers meet the sea.

On the salt-water side come sandy seabeds, a rocky coast and the creatures of sea caves, then the jellyfish, and then the bridge.

The final tank on the salt-water side is the only one that leaves Italy. It recreates a Red Sea coral reef, and it’s there to make a point about a warming Mediterranean and the species that now reach it through the Suez Canal.

Behind the building, a semicircular portico opens onto a garden anyone can walk into, with ponds that recreate the wetlands of the Po plain, now rare around Milan.

The last pavilion of Milan’s 1906 Expo

Milan held an International Exposition in 1906 to celebrate the opening of the Simplon tunnel, the railway under the Alps to Switzerland. When the fair closed, the aquarium was the pavilion the city kept, and it’s the only one still standing. It calls itself the second aquarium in Italy, after the one in Naples, opened in 1874, and one of the first in Europe.

The architect, Sebastiano Locati, worked in Liberty, as Italians call Art Nouveau, with a Viennese accent, and made the outside tell passers-by what they’d find in it. Walk round the building before you go in.

A restoration from 2003 to 2006 brought the outside back to how it looked at the start and gave the inside new tanks.

Milan Aquarium tickets and the YesMilano City Pass

A full ticket is €8, and under-18s go in free. You don’t need to book, though the aquarium advises it if you’d rather not wait at the door.

The aquarium is also one of the six civic museums in both YesMilano passes, so on the Standard it doesn’t use your one premium pick.

The Sforza Castle, next door, is on the same passes, and so is the Natural History Museum; Milan Pass and Milan’s city passes covers the rest.

Milan Aquarium opening hours and house rules

The ticket office shuts at 16:30, half an hour before the last entry, and Monday is the closing day.

Lanza metro and Parco Sempione

The aquarium is at Viale Gadio 2, on the edge of Parco Sempione, between the Sforza Castle and the Arena Civica, the city’s 19th-century stadium. Lanza, on the green M2, is 350 metres away, and Cairoli, on the M1, about 750. Trams 2, 4, 12 and 14 stop at Lanza, and bus 57 stops at Arena, 170 metres from the door.