Milan + Turin, Curated by Ali LaBelle
Move through Milan and Turin's Art Nouveau facades, fashion ateliers, and a century of Italian design — in the company of someone who knows exactly where to look.
Tracing Design Through Italy's North
Art Nouveau facades, fashion archives, artisan studios, and a century of design thinking — Milan and Turin unfold through the work of the makers, architects, and institutions that gave Italian design its global authority. From Milan's role as a living laboratory for contemporary fashion and art to Turin's layered history of Baroque ambition and mid-century invention, this journey traces the design culture that shaped an entire country's relationship to beauty.
This is six days in two of Italy's great design cities, in the company of Ali LaBelle — a creative director and tastemaker whose work centers on craft, beauty, and the story behind how things are made.
About your trip
For Ali LaBelle, Milan is the city that has informed more of her creative work than any other — and the natural starting point for a trip built around the community she has spent years cultivating through À La Carte. Milan was the obvious choice for someone who loves architectural tours, art, and fashion — Turin was the necessary one, added because no design story about Italy's north is complete without it.
Every stop on this itinerary reflects Ali's sensibility: an eye for the handmade, the historic, and the detail that most people walk past without noticing. Come ready to look closely, eat well, and leave with a fuller understanding of what Italian design actually is — and where it comes from.
What’s included
Ali LaBelle as your co-host and design guide throughout the trip
A professional photographer documenting the journey so you can stay present
All activities, tours, museum entries, and experiences listed in the itinerary
Boutique hotel accommodations (4-star) — 3 nights in Milan, 3 nights in Turin
Train travel between Milan and Turin
6 breakfasts, 5 lunches, and 2 dinners
Ali LaBelle's exclusive Eat, Play, Shop Guide for Milan and Turin
An experienced local host with you throughout the trip
Not included
Airfare in and out of the country
Airport transfers in and out of the city — we know many travelers will want to arrive early or extend their time in Italy, so we've kept this flexible to accommodate your own plans. We're happy to help arrange any transport needed at the start or end of the itinerary and can provide guidance and advice along the way.
Incidental expenses
Alcohol, except where noted
Tips for local hosts, and photographers — suggested amounts will be provided
Travelers must provide evidence that they have purchased travel insurance for the duration of their journey. If you’d like to upgrade to a single room, you can add this during the booking process. If you need assistance please contact our Customer Success team.
Itinerary
Flight
☞ Please remember to book separately
Day 1
☞ Arrival in Milan | Aperitivo | Welcome Dinner
Day 2
☞ Hidden Art Nouveau Milan | House Museum | Fendi Archives & Atelier
Day 3
☞ Fondazione Prada | Bar Luce Lunch | Leather Atelier | Ceramics Studio
Day 4
☞ Italian Design Museum | Train to Turin | Evening at Leisure
Day 5
☞ Royal Palace | Lunch | Medieval Castle & Contemporary Art Museum
Day 6
☞ Private Architect's Home | Historic Caffè Lunch | Opera House | Farewell Dinner
Day 7
☞ Departure from Turin
All trips include a professional photographer, so you can stay fully present. Photos from the journey are shared with the group during and after the trip.
More details in the FAQ below.
These are a few of Ali’s favorite snaps from Milan.
Your Itinerary
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Arrival in Milan | Aperitivo | Welcome Dinner
Benvenuti a Milano!
Check into a hotel in the heart of Milan whose walls double as a gallery — a thoughtfully curated collection of contemporary works fills every corner, from installations to painting, chosen to provoke curiosity rather than decorate. It sets the right tone for the week ahead.
The evening begins with aperitivo — the daily ritual that has defined Milanese social life for more than a century. Ali will lead us to one of Milan's most storied aperitivo bars, a place that has been serving its signature oversized spritz since the 1960s. It is the right way to begin: a ritual that is at once deeply local and completely legible, a reminder that Italian design extends well beyond buildings and objects.
We'll have our first of many meals together at a historic osteria in the Porta Venezia district — one of Milan's most enduring neighborhood restaurants, and a proper Milanese meal to kick off the week.
Accommodations: Design-forward boutique hotel, central Milan
Meals Included: Dinner
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Hidden Art Nouveau Milan | Behind the Scenes at the Fendi Archives
At the turn of the twentieth century, Milan's emerging bourgeoisie built to prove their taste — commissioning residences that were designed to signal a new kind of ambition, distinct from the old nobility and more self-conscious than anything that came before it. Ali and a Milanese local with architectural expertise will lead us through the neighborhood with the highest concentration of these buildings, tracing how social aspiration and aesthetic experimentation became indistinguishable in the architecture of a single decade.
The walk moves through Corso di Porta Venezia past Milan's first Art Nouveau building, past a villa famous for its resident flamingos, and into the streets around some of the era's most expressive facades — ceramic tile and carved stone compressing an entire philosophical moment into a single building front. The morning closes with a private visit to a house museum preserving the collection of a prominent Milanese family: paintings, furniture, and objects assembled with the same principled eye that built the house around them. Lunch is at a beloved local restaurant nearby — the place to try cotoletta milanese, the city's most iconic dish.
In the afternoon, we'll go behind the scenes of the Fendi Archives — into an on-site atelier where made-to-order handbags are assembled by hand and artisan techniques are demonstrated up close. This is a private access experience not open to the public.
Accommodations: Design-forward boutique hotel, central Milan
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
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Fondazione Prada | Leather Atelier & Ceramics Studio
The day begins at the Fondazione Prada — one of the most seriously considered contemporary art institutions in Europe. We'll move through the complex: the gilded Haunted House, the permanent collection, the marble elevator, and the headline exhibition of Mona Hatoum's work, whose installations engage the body, displacement, and domestic space with a precision that will resonate across the week. We'll then head to Bar Luce for lunch — Wes Anderson's contribution to the Fondazione complex, a 1950s Milanese café rendered with such affectionate exactitude that it functions as both a place to eat and an argument about what design can do to a room.
The afternoon moves into the ateliers. First, a prestigious leather workshop where each traveler will select their own leather colors and style before watching an artisan assemble a card-holder by hand to their specification — which leaves with you. The second stop is a female-led ceramics studio whose work appears in the home lines of major fashion houses, where the relationship between craft and commercial design is most honestly on display.
For those who want to keep exploring with Ali, the next stop is Pettinaroli — a stationery shop that has been open since 1881, and, in Ali's words, "a treasure trove of paper goods, custom cards, maps, wax seals — everything a fellow stationery lover would appreciate." For those who want to explore independently, Ali will provide us with her guide to Milan's best independent design and artisan shops. Either way, the rest of the afternoon is yours.
As the afternoon winds down, we'll regroup for an aperitivo — a chance to compare notes on the day, share what caught your eye, and hear Ali's reflections on everything we've seen and made together.
The evening is free for dinner. Milan has no shortage of options — from elegant tables to informal wine bars serving local producers. We'll provide a curated list of recommendations to choose from.
Accommodations: Design-forward boutique hotel, central Milan
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
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Italian Design Museum | Milan to Turin
The morning is spent at one of Italy's most important design museums — the institution most responsible for shaping how the country understands its own design history. We'll move through the permanent collection and current exhibitions, a grounding in the broader context that has made Milan a design capital.
After a light lunch, we'll board the train west to Turin. The journey is brief and scenic, a crossing of the Po Valley that feels like a gear change: from the forward-looking energy of Milan toward the more layered, contemplative atmosphere of the city ahead. Turin is smaller, more residential, and in some ways stranger — a city of long colonnaded streets, Art Nouveau pastry shops, and Baroque palaces built by a royal dynasty that no longer exists.
Once we arrive, we'll check into a hotel that wears its age well — frescoed ceilings, a colonnaded courtyard, and a location that puts you in the middle of the city's best streets from the moment you step outside. The evening is yours to begin exploring — one of Turin's most unexpected spaces awaits those who want to start early: a former industrial rooftop test track transformed into an art museum with outdoor installations and sweeping views over the city. Your Eat, Play, Shop Guide includes further recommendations for the city's historic caffè circuit, worth beginning to discover on your own time.
Accommodations: Elegant boutique hotel, central Turin
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
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A Royal Palace | Medieval Castle Filled With Contemporary Art
The Savoy dynasty ruled northwest Italy for centuries from a series of residences built to project power and cultivate beauty in equal measure. This morning we'll head to one of the largest royal palaces open to the public in Europe — a Baroque hunting lodge on the outskirts of Turin whose scale was always as much about theatre as it was about shelter. We'll move through its grand gallery and armoury, rooms that understood spectacle as an instrument of governance.
Lunch is at a family-run restaurant nearby — a first taste of small-town Piedmontese cooking, where the ingredients travel no further than the surrounding fields and the meal arrives the way it always has, dish by dish at a shared table.
We'll then transfer to a hilltop town overlooking Turin where a medieval castle has been converted into one of Italy's most significant contemporary art museums. We'll have time to move through the grounds and permanent collection at our own pace — before gathering together for a creative discussion led by Ali, a chance to reflect on the week so far and the ideas it has started to surface.
The evening is yours. Depending on the season's programming, there may be a performance at the opera house — the same building we'll visit together the following day. We'll keep you informed as the schedule is announced.
Accommodations: Elegant boutique hotel, central Turin
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
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A Private Eccentric Home Tour | Historic Caffè | An Opera House | Farewell Dinner
The morning begins with a private visit to the home of one of Italy's most eccentric and brilliant architects — a preserved interior that reflects a singular twentieth-century intelligence: self-referential, surrealist, and completely coherent as a portrait of a man who designed everything around him, including the furniture he never slept in. It is the kind of room that stays with you.
We'll then head to lunch at the historic dining room of one of Turin's oldest and most celebrated caffè institutions — a room where the city's social and intellectual life has been transacted since the nineteenth century.
In the afternoon, we'll head to the opera house — redesigned in the 1960s by the same architect whose home we visited this morning, after the original building burned. The connection becomes clear the moment you walk in: the same surrealist intelligence, the same obsessive attention to detail, now scaled to an entire building. Egg motifs, bronze astrological doors, a mid-century modern interior sitting behind a Baroque facade.
We'll end our last afternoon together at one of Turin's most famous historic caffès — a beautiful, storied room that has been at the center of the city's social life for generations. From there, we'll head to our farewell dinner at one of the city's most acclaimed restaurants, a chic, chef-driven spot known for its creative take on Piedmontese tradition.
Accommodations: Elegant boutique hotel, central Turin
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Aperitivo, Dinner
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Departure
After breakfast, we'll say our goodbyes and head our separate ways. Airport transfers from Turin are not included — we're happy to help arrange whatever you need for your onward journey, whether you're flying out of Turin directly or making your way back through Milan.
Carry with you the rooms that reconfigured your eye, the objects you watched being made, and the particular quality of attention that a week spent looking closely tends to leave behind.
Meals Included: Breakfast
Rapid Fire with Ali
Learn more about Ali, what inspires her work, and why she chose to design a trip to Milan and Turin.
Important Additional Notes
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Our small group trips are intentionally designed for a specific kind of traveler. Before booking, all travelers must read and agree to our Traveler Values.
You are open-minded, curious, and present—more interested in the moment than perfection.
You enjoy stepping outside your comfort zone and are excited to engage with cultures different from your own.
You've read the full itinerary, understand the travel style and accommodations, and feel comfortable with what's outlined.
You recognize that you're visiting places where daily rhythms may differ from home, and you approach those differences with patience and respect.
You understand that travel can be unpredictable, and that last-minute changes due to weather, logistics, or local circumstances are sometimes unavoidable.
You're adaptable, easy-going, and able to roll with changes—knowing that some of the best moments come from the unexpected.
You know you can opt out of any activity at any time, and will communicate openly with your guide when you do.
If concerns arise, you're willing to raise them directly with your local host or the El Camino team so we can address them proactively.
You value inclusivity and are excited to travel alongside people from different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.
You show up with generosity—toward fellow travelers, local partners, and the places we're privileged to visit.
Our trips are rooted in responsible tourism, mutual respect, and shared experience. Agreeing to these values helps ensure a positive, connected journey for everyone involved.
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Most design-focused travel either stays on the surface — flagship museums, famous piazzas, well-trafficked restaurants — or leans so heavily on exclusivity that the experiences feel performative. This trip is different because it was built by someone with a genuine point of view: Ali LaBelle's design sensibility, curatorial eye, and deep appreciation for craft, heritage, and the details most people walk past shaped every stop on this itinerary.
What Ali brings is not a list of stops. It is a way of moving through a city that prioritizes the specific over the famous and the handmade over the well-known. Traveling with her means experiencing both cities the way a designer does — slowly, deliberately, and with real intention behind every choice.
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All our small group trips include a professional photographer.
This isn’t about content creation or social media—it’s about presence. Having a photographer allows travelers to fully experience a place and the people they meet, without feeling pressure to document every moment themselves.
The photographers we work with are highly respected professionals who know how to move quietly, capture real moments, and tell the story of a journey with sensitivity and care.
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We recommend flying into Milan Malpensa (MXP) or Milan Linate (LIN) at the start of the trip, and departing from Turin at the end. That said, we know there are many ways in and out of both cities, and many travelers will want to arrive early or continue on elsewhere afterward. We've kept transfers flexible to accommodate your own plans. Once we know your itinerary, we're happy to provide recommendations, help coordinate transport at an additional cost, or offer guidance on the best way to get where you're going.
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We encourage travelers to arrive no later than 3:00 pm on September 26. This gives you time to check in, orient yourself, and be ready for the early evening aperitivo that opens the trip.
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This itinerary is designed for the traveler who wants to understand a place through what it makes, builds, and values — and who finds the story behind an object as compelling as the object itself.
If you're drawn to design as culture — not just as aesthetics — and you want a trip built around the people and places behind the work rather than the brands that sell it, this is the right trip.
This trip is ideal if you:
are genuinely curious about craft, design history, and the making of things
want hands-on experiences in ateliers, archives, and studios that don't open their doors to everyone
are drawn to Ali LaBelle's curatorial sensibility and want to experience her design perspective in person
prefer boutique, character-forward stays over large hotel chains
value intimate group travel with access that independent travelers rarely get
like meaningful conversations and real encounters over curated performances
This trip is also well suited for solo travelers who share a passion for design and want to experience both cities alongside a small group of like-minded people.
If you're looking for a fast-paced tour of Italy's greatest hits — the Amalfi Coast, Rome, the lakes — this is not that trip. This itinerary goes deep into two cities most visitors never slow down enough to understand.
Please review our Traveler Values before booking.
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We are not a luxury travel company, but we're far from budget. In Milan and Turin, "high–low" becomes atelier–aperitivo.
We believe the richest understanding of a place comes from contrasts:
a morning in a fashion house archive and an afternoon watching a card-holder assembled by hand to your specification,
moving through one of Europe's most considered contemporary art institutions and ending the day at a 1960s Milanese bar that hasn't changed much since,
a private visit to an eccentric architect's preserved home and lunch in a caffè that has been holding the same room together since the nineteenth century,
a week built around craft, design, and beauty — and enough free evenings to wander both cities on your own terms.
In Milan and Turin, design isn't a highlight of the trip — it's the lens through which everything else is understood.
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Standard pricing is based on shared double rooms. This allows us to offer high-quality boutique stays while keeping the trip accessible.
Traveling with a friend, partner, or family member? We'll room you together.
Traveling solo? Most of our travelers do. Before departure, we'll learn about your preferences and match you with a compatible roommate. We're always happy to talk through any concerns.
Single room upgrades are available in most locations. If they sell out at checkout, email us at info@elcamino.travel and we'll see what additional options exist.
Here's what to expect across the itinerary:
Milan — a design-forward boutique hotel in the city center whose walls double as a gallery, filled with a thoughtfully curated collection of contemporary works
Turin — a hotel that wears its age well, with frescoed ceilings, a colonnaded courtyard, and a location that puts you in the middle of the city's best streets from the moment you step outside
All hotels meet the El Camino standard: clean, safe, aesthetically considered, and chosen for experience over excess.
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No more than 14 travelers, 1 ECT host, and 1 photographer.
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Ali LaBelle will be your co-host throughout the trip. An experienced local El Camino host will be with the group at all times to manage logistics, navigate on the ground, and ensure that every day runs as it should. Before departure, you will receive a welcome packet with full host introductions, a pre-trip reading list, and everything you need to prepare.
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A 30% deposit is due at booking. The remaining balance is due 90 days before departure.
Please read our Booking Terms and Conditions for more information about our cancellation policy.
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This itinerary is moderately active, with experiences that take you through city streets, historic interiors, hilltop towns, and royal palace grounds. Much of what makes this trip special is experienced on foot, and the most memorable moments often happen in places vehicles can't reach.
Travelers should be comfortable with:
walking up to 3–4 miles per day on cobblestones and uneven terrain
extended time on foot during the Art Nouveau neighborhood walk in Milan
navigating steps and inclines in and around Turin's hilltop sites
standing for extended periods during atelier visits and museum experiences
This is not a physically strenuous trip, but it is immersive.
If you have concerns about the activity level, recent surgeries, or mobility issues, please reach out to us at info@elcamino.travel before booking so we can ensure the trip is a good fit.