Hi all! My husband, 3 year old daughter and I will be going to Lake Garda for a week in late May to early June this year. Right now, the plan is to stay in one hotel (most likely in Garda town) for 7 nights. ...but because our flight back to Newark is from Malpensa airport at 10:20AM, I'm wondering if it would be easier to stay in Garda for 6 nights instead and stay for one night somewhere much closer to Malpensa. What would you recommend?
Note that our inbound flight is to Bergamo, which seems a lot closer to Lake Garda than Malpensa. We will most likely rent a car at some point during our stay in Lake Garda, but we might prefer to just hire transfers to and from the airport because I wouldn't want my husband to drive so far before or after such a long flight.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Joby
Transfer from Lake Garda to Malpensa airport?
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It depends on where you are staying in Lago di Garda, which is a very large lake.
You should contact your hotel and ask them what the cost would be. If you haven't booked a hotel yet, then the websites of some of the larger luxury hotels often include the price of a transfer in their information about how to reach the hotel.
If you are planning on having a car, it might be easier if you drove yourselves to a hotel closer to Malpensa the night before your flight, and then drove yourselves to the airport the next morning. It's a 40 minute drive from the town of Arona on Lago Maggiore to Malpensa airport. You can look on booking.com for a suitable hotel with parking.
For a 10:20 flight to Newark you need to be at the airport around 7:30. Car, transfer, train - however you do it that would mean getting up extremely early. There are several hotels right at the airport, some quite inexpensive (they are not walking distance but all have free transfers). Then you could spend the day on Lake Garda, drive yourselves there the evening before and deal with turning in the rental car and just sleep there. You don't really need to loose a day on the lake but seems a lot less hazel and stress than doing it early in the morning of the flight.
Don't drive from Lake Garda to Malpensa. Take the fast train from Desenzano to Milano Centrale and then the Malpensa Express to the Airport. The best solution would be to stay at the Sheraton - http://www.sheratonmilanmalpensa.it/ = which is literally 2/3 minutes by foot from the train station and an equal time to the departure terminal.
Cheaper hotels away from the airport are available and many have courtesy buses
Depending on how much you are packing and if you end up staying in the town of Garda, getting to the train station in Desenzano, and then negotiating train changes and shuttle buses to airport hotels with luggage and a 3 year old can be difficult. If you are only each taking backpacks and a stroller, might be OK. But it is certainly not a trip I'd want to do in the rain.
If you opt to stay at an airport hotel, be careful which one you choose because some are quite a distance from the terminals and the courtesy buses stop at many hotels along the way, so be sure you allow time for that on the morning of your departure.
If you end up wanting to drive from Lago di Garda to an airport hotel, I suggest that one of you drop off everybody else and the luggage at the hotel and then go solo to turn in the car if you are unwilling to keep it overnight and turn it in early in the morning. Otherwise, you will be trying to get out of the airport via courtesy shuttle bus with baby & luggage, and it can be confusing and unpleasant since the shuttle buses are not always prompt and hanging around the airport traffic zone is polluted and unpleasant.
Thank you so much for the suggestions! It does sound like it will be much better for us to stay at a Malpensa airport hotel the night before, so that's what we'll do.
Got one more question though - how would you recommend we go from Garda town to Malpensa the day before our flight back to the US? I think taking public transportation will be too difficult with a 3 year old especially since we will be bringing more than just a backpack each. We know we will want a car at some point during our stay in Garda, but we haven't decided whether to rent a car from Bergamo airport at the beginning of our trip.
So would you recommend we rent a car from Bergamo when we arrive and drop off at Malpensa the day before our flight home? ...or should we try to hire a transfer to Garda town from Bergamo airport and another transfer from Garda town to the Malpensa airport hotel? Is it even possible to get a transfer from Garda all the way to Malpensa? I do realize that a transfer from Garda to Malpensa will most likely be expensive. Let me know what you think...
Thanks again!
Joby