Walks of Italy Review: Milan Tours

Walks of Italy is one of the original premium walking-tour brands in Italy, and its Milan programme is deliberately narrow: a single small-group tour that solves the two hardest bookings in the city — Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper and the Duomo di Milano — plus two private itineraries. This review sets out exactly what is in the €91 price, what is not, and how it compares with our partner products.

Who Walks of Italy is

The company describes itself as having begun over 15 years ago with two guides at the Colosseum, and its Rome pages claim over a million guests since 2009. Its published address is Viale Giuseppe Mazzini 88, Rome, and the site runs on the shared WalksDevour platform. Ownership is settled: Walks was bought by the Hornblower Group in 2021 and folded into its City Experiences portfolio, and the terms you accept at checkout refer to the “Hornblower Group Family of Companies” without naming a separate Italian entity for Milan bookings. So this is a large international tour group rather than a local Milanese agency, and the counterparty on your booking is the group, not a Milan office.

Eight Italian cities are covered, with Rome and the Vatican as the core business. Milan is a satellite — worth knowing, because guides are Milan-based freelancers and licensed locals rather than a head-office team, and support runs through a central booking desk.

What Walks of Italy sells in Milan

The flagship is the first one, and it carries the review weight: 4.7 out of 5 from 1,102 guest reviews, of which 689 are the company’s own verified post-tour ratings and the rest come from Tripadvisor and Viator, according to the tour page. The private walking tour shows 253 reviews; the aperitivo tour is newly launched with a handful. The two private figures come from the listing data on those pages rather than from the visible page, which loads a price only after you pick a date — check at checkout whether the amount covers the whole private group or each person before you commit.

The 3-hour itinerary, checked against their own list

Walks of Italy publishes a sites-visited list for the Best of Milan tour: Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, the Milan Duomo, La Scala Theater from outside, and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. That is a useful correction to the way this tour is often summarised. You go inside two of the four — the refectory at Santa Maria delle Grazie and the cathedral. Teatro alla Scala is a stop on the pavement, and the Galleria is a public arcade anyone can walk through for free.

Inclusions are equally explicit: pre-reserved skip-the-line Last Supper ticket, guided visit to the painting, skip-the-line Duomo ticket and guided tour inside, expert English-speaking guide, and a headset. Hotel pick-up and gratuities are excluded. Note what is missing — the Duomo terraces. If the rooftop is the reason you came to Piazza del Duomo, this tour does not cover it and you will need a separate terrace ticket.

The tour meets at Piazza di Santa Maria delle Grazie outside the church, 15 minutes before the start, with a guide holding a green Walks sign; exact instructions come with your confirmation.

Language, ID and the rules that cancel bookings

Tours run in English only. The FAQ states plainly that the company does not run multi-language departures, which is a genuine advantage over the bilingual coach products sold at the Duomo — you never lose a third of the tour to a second language. It is also a hard limit: if your group needs Italian, Spanish or French, look elsewhere.

The ID rule is the one that catches people. Every guest must supply a full name and date of birth matching a valid ID when booking, or the reservation is cancelled, and photo ID is required to enter the Cenacolo. This is the venue’s rule, not the operator’s invention — the refectory admits about 30 people at a time for 15 minutes and checks names.

Cancellation and refunds

The Milan product page states the general policy: cancel more than 24 hours before your tour for a full refund, cancel inside 24 hours and it is non-refundable, with amendments subject to availability and possible price differences. Late arrivals and no-shows get nothing.

The separate cancellation page is stricter for some cities — seven days for Colosseum tours, three for St Mark’s Basilica, fully non-refundable for the Uffizi, and seven days for private tours and groups of ten or more. Milan is not named among those exceptions, and the page adds that any further tours falling under strict ticketing “will be clearly identified during the booking process” — so the checkout screen, not the policy page, is where you find out. Two things do follow from the published rules: the small-group Best of Milan tour sits on the 24-hour rule, and both Milan private tours fall under the private-and-large-group clause, which is refundable up to seven days before and non-refundable inside that.

Verdict

Good for: first-time visitors who want one booking that gets them inside both the Cenacolo and the cathedral with a strong English-speaking guide, and who value a firm 15-person cap. At €91 it is competitively priced for what it includes.

Less good for: anyone who wants the Duomo terraces, a Teatro alla Scala ticket, or a guide in a language other than English. Private prices are not visible until checkout, which makes comparison shopping awkward.

Watch: the ID-at-booking rule, and the 24-hour refund cliff on a ticket the venue will not resell.

When to choose Walks of Italy, and when a partner product wins

Choose Walks of Italy when guiding quality on the painting is the priority and English is fine. Choose a partner product when you want more sights per booking or a smaller cap at a lower price. The like-for-like comparison is the guided city walk with a skip-the-line Last Supper ticket, sold on both our platforms — worth checking side by side before you pay. Background on the venue rules is on our Last Supper page, the full tour market on Milan tours, and terrace options on Duomo rooftop tickets. Prices checked September 2026.

If you would rather add Teatro alla Scala or a longer city itinerary to the same Last Supper slot, these are the two to weigh: