We are going to Italy in mid May, mature backpackers. We are particularly interested in visiting small seaside villages that are not too commercialised but still fairly easy to reach via train or bus. Any suggestions?
Seaside villages in Italy
Recent Activity
View all Europe activity »
- 1
TR Provence, Israel, Switzerland, Italy..April 16 a day of AA infamy
- 2 Navigo Decouverte
- 3 What size luggage?
- 4 Planning a honeymoon in Spain - most romantic areas??
- 5 Shuttle from CDG to Paris
- 6 Travel in Spain
- 7 I Need To Vent!
- 8 The Adventure Begins.. Sarge56 in Italy
- 9 PARIS: apartment for a family of 4. Could use your help.
- 10 Two days in Amsterdam; bike tour
- 11 Dining in Rapallo and Camogli
- 12
Solo in Sicily - April 2013
- 13
Don't slight Bruges
- 14
Tales from Venice, Bologna, Pienza and Rome
- 15 Time from Venice airport to St Marks Square
- 16 10 days in Cortona- any suggestions ?
- 17 Daytrip from Waterford to Kilkenny
- 18 Seems to me this forum is a lot less active than in years past....
- 19 Desperate! photo SD card says "not Formatted" is all lost!?
- 20 American Citizen Buying a Home in Spain
- 21 ? re hotels in 5 terre
- 22 jungfraujoch mid june
- 23 Shopping in France for the larger than average...
- 24 Please help with 4 day itinerary!!
- 25 3 LADIES - NAXOS OR PAROS AS BASE FOR 7 DAYS
Which part of Italy?
How small do you want the villages to be? I'd recommend Cefalu but it's larger than a small village. There were not many people there in May so although there are probably lots of people in the summer it was quiet in May. It's easily reached via train from Palermo.
Do you want the villages to have shops and restaurants or small enough to only contain houses?
Italy has thousands of miles of coastline, so you might have to be a bit more specific!
The best answer, as usual, it's "it depends on what you are looking for".
If your high interest is about swimming and relax and you are not interest about nightlife nor in visiting monuments or so, you should visit island Sardinia, in the South area. In a little village as Pula, for example, which can be reached just by car from Cagliari, you can experience the wildest side of Sardinia and get in touch with an amazing native culture. Pula has got sexy beaches where you can practice diving and snorkeling. If you need some suggestion about accommodation you can try to have a look at this http://www.hotelbaiadinora.com/en/hotel-baia-di-nora-sardinia.html
The Italian Riviera has a train line with a station in every village between the Tuscan border and France. If you get the Cadogan guide to the Italian Riveria & Piemonte, you can read about every single one of them. In mid-May, if you get off the train at a town and decide you don't like it, you can get back on the train and go to another one. From the coastal towns, there is terrific bus service up into the hills, which produce a lot of olive oil and vegetables, and there are amazing hilltowns to visit. Again, you can read all about it in the Cadogan guide.
It is hard to beat the italian Riviera for hidden gems with good public transportation access.