Volandia Museum With Kids: 4 Reasons To Visit This Milan Museum
We’re always trying to take advantage of learning opportunities when we travel. During a recent overnight in Milan, Italy to pick up our rental car, we happened to visit a museum of aviation, called Volandia Museum.
We’re so glad we did, because it was full of old planes, trains, and cars that we could look at and even go into. My kids and I spent a whole afternoon exploring and stepping back into time!
We love visiting museums when we travel. And as a worldschooling family, it’s so important to take advantage of opportunities for learning wherever we go.
This post was updated on May 28, 2020.
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Stumbling upon Volandia museum in Milan, Italy
We hadn’t expected to do any kind of sightseeing in Milan. Since we were only there for a night, and staying at a hotel near the airport, at that, we knew there wasn’t much time for exploration within the city limits. We didn't even think we even had time to visit a Milan museum.
But just in case, I took a look at Google Maps to see what was near our hotel. On the map, I saw a place called Volandia Museum near the Milan airport, and clicked the icon to see what it was all about.
From the website, I learned that Volandia Museum is an aircraft museum, located in the former grounds of Caproni, an Italian aircraft company. There are over 100 planes on exhibit at Volandia, as well as other transportation vessels too!
If you're looking for ways to supplement your Volandia experience, buy one of these books about airplanes or the history of flight to read with your kids ahead of time:
Ultimate Paper Airplanes For Kids
Aircraft: The Definitive Visual History
We love going to unique museums or learning experiences when we travel, like visiting a subway museum in New York City or visiting a traditional Balinese village in Indonesia. So a visit to Volandia is right up our alley.
Click here to learn more about other destinations throughout Italy.
Getting to Volandia
If you're staying in Milan, Volandia is located around 31 miles (50 kms) from Milan center. It's adjacent to the Malpensa airport. By car, you can get there by following directions to Malpensa airport and then taking either the Busto Arsizio exit or the Somma Lombardo - Case Nuove.
If you don’t have a car, head to the airport terminal via the Malpensa Express. One way tickets cost 14 euros At the airport terminal, follow signs to Volandia (exit number 17).
It will be a bit of a walk, including walking over a pedestrian bridge, but eventually you will get to the Volandia building. Walk around the building to the main entrance. More in depth directions can be found on the Volandia website.
Things to know about visiting Volandia
It turns out, this museum of aviation is a great place for families to spend an afternoon. Volandia is open on Mondays to Fridays from 10am to 6pm. And on Saturdays and Sundays, the hours are from 10am to 6:30pm.
Adult tickets cost 14 euros, while admission for teens (aged 12-18) costs 12 euros. Tickets for children between the ages of 3 and 11 are 6 euros. Admission grants you access to all the museum pavilions, the Planetarium Show, the Flight Simulators, and access to the car museum and the rail and tram exhibits.
Families can take advantage of the family ticket pricing. Prices are 29 euros for families of two parents and one child, 34 euros for families of two parents and two children. Extra children are 3 euros each.
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Highlights of Volandia, the museum of aviation
Volandia is a fun museum of aviation for families to visit while in Milan. Since it’s so close to the airport, it’s relatively easy to get to from the city. You can get there by public transportation.
If you have an afternoon to spend while in Milan, consider spending it at this museum of aviation. Here are some highlights from our visit to Volandia Museum.
1. Walking through aircrafts
Along the back of the property are old aircrafts that you can walk into. One of them was an old airplane from Italy’s Meridiana airline, a privately owned airline that ceased operations in 2018. The kids had fun pretending they were flight attendants on the plane!
2. Space exhibit
Volandia has a fairly interesting space exhibit. While there aren’t any space crafts to walk into, there are objects related to space travel that are on display, as well as photographs and diagrams. We loved watching the videos of astronauts in the space stations doing daily activities, like making dinner, in space.
3. Automobiles throughout the years
For being a museum of aviation, there are actually a lot of automobiles at Volandia. One of our favorite parts about this Milan museum is seeing old cars on exhibit, some even dating back to the 1950’s or possibly older. Many of the cars on display were European cars, but we saw a few American cars. There were also concept cars on display, showcasing where the automobile industry may be heading towards in future years.
4. Trains, trams, and trolleys.
We also enjoyed seeing the displays of old trains, trams, and trolleys at the museum. Really, Volandia should be called a transportation museum rather than an aircraft museum. Many of them we couldn’t walk into, but it was still pretty cool to walk around them and observe the differences in designs over the years.
Unexpected learning at Volandia Museum
For a worldschooling family like us, spending an afternoon at Volandia was a fun way to incorporate education into our travels. We love finding unexpected learning opportunities when we’re traveling. And when you slow travel like we do, you have much more time to do these unique learning experiences, rather than just sticking to the tourist sites.
Even though the exhibits were in Italian, we still had a great learning experience. Being able to see old airplanes on display, and also old cars too, was a fun way to get hands-on history experiences. Our kids really got to step into the shoes of people in the past, and imagine what travel might have been like back then.
If you’re planning a visit to Milan, Italy with your kids, consider making a trip out to this Volandia Museum. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by all the things your kids may learn.
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