Trip report: Northern Italy with teens. Stupendo!

Hi all. We just got back from a wonderful trip to Northern Italy. My husband and I took our two boys (15 and 17) on a trip where we flew to Venice and flew home through Milan.

I'll post hotel and car info at the end. We stayed at several places I’d highly recommend.

Day 1: Venice

Our flight landed in Venice, and we took the airport shuttle to Piazzale Roma to pick up our apartment keys. (Our apt. was in the Castello section). From there, we took vaporetto #1 practically all the way to the end (Arsenale stop).

The vaporetto is a terrific way to be introduced to Venice! We were tired, and just sitting there watching the sites along the Grand Canal was truly an amazing way to see the city. We found our apt. easily. Since it was a short walk to San Marco, we decided to walk around there a bit, get dinner, and call it an early night.

I read that whenever you are in Europe, you should look into every church you see, and I try to do that. In Venice, the first church we saw near out apt. looked small, but when I went inside, it had a famous Renaissance painting above the altar. (It was of Christ, and in the sky he was an arc of angels, but the angels had no bodies, just wings coming out of their heads. I need to find out the artists’ name).

Upon leaving San Marco, my husband said: let’s not go directly back, and take maybe a 30 min. walk. We took a walk all right. We got SO lost. At one point, we thought we were approaching the San Zaccaro vaporetto stop (not far from San Marco), but we were on the other side of the Venice! We were in the Cannaregio neighborhood, and had to find our way back to the other side. It took quite a while (and we did have a good map). We sure got a great introduction to that neighborhood (and others). Our planned ½ hour walk took, I am not exaggerating, 2 hours. Surprisingly, no one complained about this, and the boys got very little sleep on the plane.

Day 2

Doge’s Palace.

We walked through on our own. I toured the palace several years ago, so I pointed out the highlights (and things like the Lion’s Mouths). I was looking forward to taking my time to study the paintings in what I call the Bosch Room, which is a room in the palace with several paintings by Hieronymous Bosch, one of my favorite painters. (On my last tour, this room was not included, and I hated knowing I couldn’t have any time to see them). While I was there, my sons and husband wandered away, and then came back. While my son was looking at a painting with me, he was greeted by a boy his age. It turns out it was a friend from HS whose family was on a Venice-Florence-Rome group trip. I think it’s neat that we saw them – and in the Bosch Room.

The boys were fascinated by the prisons, which we viewed at the end of the tour.

Correr Museum

Our Museum Pass included this museum, so we walked around there a bit. They have some interesting paintings and items from Venice’s history.

The crowds around San Marco were growing (we got to the Doge’s Palace at 9am, and dealt with no crowds – it was nice). We decided to eat lunch and then hang out at the apartment for a few hour to re-energize.

Dosoduro

We spent the afternoon exploring this neighborhood, which I remembered fondly from my last trip.

San Pantalon church – Our first stop was to this church, which has an amazingly illusion painted tromp l-oil (sp?) ceiling. Even my son, who is not fond of churches, admitted that it was very cool.

We walked around the streets of this neighborhood, which seemed empty compared to the mobs around San Marco. We got gelato, and I bought some Murano glass earrings. On my last trip, I bought a necklace in this neighborhood, and it’s one of my favorite ones. I found the same jewelry shop, owned by the same young girl, and bought the earrings there.

Day 3: Venice to Sirmione

We needed to vacate our apt. in the morning. We rode the vaporetto #1 back to the P. Roma – I loved this route. We picked up a car and drove to Sirmione, but stopped at Verona on the way.

Verona

We were not planning on stopping here, but we had plently of time, so we wandered around a bit. We got goofy pictures with the guys who dress up as gladiators outside their Colliseum, saw Juliet’s balcony and walked around the main streets.

Sirmione.

At night we walked around this town. We entered the Castle Scaligeri and climbed the stairs to the top, walked over the drawbridge, etc. Nice views. We walked around the narrow streets to the tip, and the Grotto – a shaded park of tall trees and beautiful flowers. It was a lovely place to walk.

Day 4: Gardaland

Gardaland is the Italian version of Disneyworld. I knew my sons would not be thrilled with a trip consisting of many museums and churches, so we took them here for something to do just for them. The rides were very Disney-like: they were themed – and done well – lots of interesting details. We rode a water ride past Atlantis; a river rapid ride through Asian temples; they rode a roller coaster; we all rode a Matterhorn type runaway train ride called Mammoth that was actually quite a long ride; a ride through Egypt and some tombs where you shot at targets (just like the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney); a Wild Mouse type ride that actually went upside down twice; and Gardaland’s version of Pirates of the Caribbean (Pirates of the Mediterrean?) It was a great ride – lots of interesting details, and I thought it was better than Disney’s version.

It was a very hot day (90), so we left around 4pm. The boys jumped in Lake Garda (there was a small “beach” near our hotel) and we went back into Sirmione for dinner and to walk around a bit that evening.

Day 5: Bergamo and Varenna/Lake Como

We left to drive to Varenna, stopping at Bergamo on the way. We took the funicular (which ran very regularly) up to the Old City. They have an amazingly decorated church and the Colleoni Chapel – we saw many ceiling frescoes and decorations, and lots of statuary decorating the outside of the church. We ate lunch were and then drove to Varenna.

Varenna is a beautiful small town on Lake Como, with beautiful views over the lake and toward Bellagio. We walked the narrow streets (lots of stairs) and took a ferry over to Bellagio for dinner.

Bellagio – my pre-conceptions of Bellagio were wrong – I thought this was a much larger place. We walked around a bit, saw most of the place. I think a big thing to do here is to walk around the Villas with their beautiful gardens, but my family had zero interest in doing that, so we took the ferry back to Varenna. Very pretty views of the lake can be seen on the ferry. We stayed at the Villa Cipressi, which has many lovely gardens and walkways, and we walked around here each night.

Day 6: Side trip to Soglio, Switzerland

The drive from Varenna to Soglio featured the most amazing mountain views – really spectacular. We drove up to Soglio (on a very twisty road) and enjoyed walking around this quiet, quaint village with terrific views of the surrounding mountains. We ate lunch here, in a shaded outdoor garden restaurant, which was part of a historic Swiss hotel. It was like entering another time. (And we definitely entered another place – much calmer with better drivers).

On the way back, we stopped to view a beautiful waterfall – it was a double waterfall, very high, and very scenic. We were able to walk very close to the base, which was neat. The water was cold and the spray was strong enough to ripple our clothes. A bit downstream, the boys hung out in the creek/river for a while. This was a fun stop – and I didn’t even know about it. I didn’t see this dramatic waterfall notated on the map, or in any of the guidebooks.

Back at the hotel, the boys used the mountain bikes provided by the hotel to ride about Varenna. They actually went down a few of the stone staircases. They thought this was fun, which is great, b/c now I can bring them mountain biking with us. We ate dinner lakeside and then went for another brief walk around town. What I loved about this trip was all the walking we did – each night we were able to walk in the most amazing places (around Venice, along Lake Como, etc).

Day 7

Today we had a change in plans. I had originally scheduled us to spend the night in Genoa. I was never comfortable with this choice b/c I read a lot about how seedy it was, and how you had to be careful b/c pickpocketing and similar tourist crime was 2nd in severity only to Rome. I wanted to see the Palazzos and churches, and they boys were not interested in that (at all), so we were able to make arrangements to spend this night at our hotel in Monterosso in the Cinque Terre. This worked out really well for us, b/c we all loved the Cinque Terre, and appreciated the extra time there.

So today featured a 4 plus hour drive. Driving around Milan was VERY stressful. I would get brave enough to attempt to pass, and look to see that the passing lane was clear. Then, I’d put my blinker on, glance again, and all of a sudden, a car going about 95 mph would be in the passing lane. And once cars or motorcycles passed us, they immediately turned into our lane, only about a car length away. Once we got around Milan, the drive towards Genoa and to the CT was fine (thankfully, whew).

We spent the evening at the beach. The boys loved the beach in Monterosso. We bought them snorkeling type goggles and they loved going to the offshore rocks and exploring around there. Along the side of the end of the beach was a cliff (the path up toward Vernazza), and there was a cave that they loved going into. They discovered they could climb about this cave and jump down into the water. This was the highlight of the trip for them. (Go figure). They really loved this – my younger son said the only thing more fun than doing that was skateboarding. I stayed on the beach with a book; I couldn’t watch. Even my goofball husband jumped twice.

Day 8 Cinque Terre – Corniglia and Vernazza

Today we got an early start and took the train to Corniglia. From there we hiked to Vernazza. The coastal views were really pretty – and the water a beautiful shade of blue. I’m so glad I read the recommendation to start in Corniglia, b/c the hike is almost all climbing stairs, getting to the high point, and then going down many, many stairs. I saw on a map that you start at a higher elevation in Corniglia, so it’s easier to start there. Walking down the many stairs to Vernazza, a couple asked me if the stairs ever ended. I felt horrible telling them that they had a lot to go. But it is a great hike and I’m so glad we did it.

Vernazza is a very picturesque town on the water. After eating lunch, we took the train back to Monterrosso and spent the late afternoon/evening back at the beach, where the boys continued to enjoy cliff jumping and rock exploring, and I hid my eyes in a book.

Day 9 – Cinque Terre – Manarolo and Riomaggiore

Today we took the train to Manarolo. We walked around the town and away from the town (toward Corniglio) for a while to get some amazing views of the town. We walked up to the cemetery, which was located away from the main area of town for sanitation purposes. We then walked the Valle d’Amore (sp?) to Riomaggiore. This was a flat, easy, short stroll with nice views of the water. We walked around Riomaggiore a bit and had lunch there. Then we took the train back and spent our final day in the CT on the beach. Our hotel room had a great balcony, and each night we would get a snack at the grocery store we passed on the way back to the room, and we enjoyed hanging out on the balcony, relaxing, reading and eating each evening.

Day 10 drive back to Milan-Malpensa

We checked out and drove back to Milan/Malpensa. It was a Sunday and traffic was so light and the drive easy and not stressful. We were hungry outside of Milan, so we got off an exit and found what looked like a pretty deserted area (it wasn’t far from an industrial area), but we were hungry so we went into the restaurant in the hotel we saw. It turned out to be a fancy type restaurant where people go for weddings, etc. We were very underdressed compared to the other patrons there. We thought we told the waiter that my son wanted a pepperoni pizza, but he got one with zucchini (?). We spent the night at a hotel near the aiprot and flew home the next day.

It was a great trip. I asked everyone what their highlights were:

My husband: Our full day in Venice, and the Cinque Terre

Me: Venice, Soglio, Cinque Terre

Both boys: jumping off the cliff in Monterosso in the Cinque Terre (seriously).