Advice for 4 young adults (female) traveling in N. Italy
 

My 23-year-old daughter and her 3 friends will be traveling from Nice to Milan in August. (I know, not ideal, but they’re teachers so they have no choice but to travel in summer and this was the timeframe worked for all 4 of them.) They have 6 nights. I’m trying to determine where to advise them to go before flying out of Milan. I like the Italian Lakes, but I just like hanging in piazzas.:) Does anyone know if there is a lot to there do that may be of interest to the younger crowd? Are the Cinque Terre too far off the beaten path (and too overcrowded in August)? They’ll be in Nice first. Is Liguria (Portofino, Santa Margarita, etc.) too similar in terms of scenery? Thanks for any opinions you can offer.

I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. They have only 6 nights for the entire trip, and they're visiting both Nice and Milan? That's not a good plan at all. They need to choose one city or the other and stay there. This trip is far 2 short for two cities.

No, sorry if I was unclear. Six nights in Italy. Thanks!

Go hang out at lake garda.

Thanks! Why Garda over any of the other lakes?

Less commercial, just a great feel and many things to do, great food and wine, good for young people, check reviews many prefer Garda would be great to just stay there for the six days and do day trips and hang out. Bardolino was full of clubs cafes restaurants and stuff to do.

Random thoughts...

You like hanging out in piazzas. What do they like to do? It may be difficult for the four to reach priorities/consensus on where to go, what to see, but I'd leave it mostly to them to figure out. My suggestion would be to focus on logistics as much as activities and sights.

It will take 6+ hours to travel from Nice to Milan by train. Non-stop flights are rare.

Depending on where they end up staying and the time of their departing flight from Malpensa, they may need to spend the last night in Milan or within easy reach of Malpensa.

August 15th is the biggest summer holiday in Italy. Italian families tend to flock to lakes, mountains and the seaside for several days. As the 15th falls on a Saturday this year, the weeks before and after will mean those areas will be especially busy. Lodging reservations there should be made well in advance, esp. if budgets are tight.

If they were to stay in Milan, although I like Milan A LOT, there are several day trips they could make by train. Lake Como, Lake Maggiore, Bergamo, Brescia, Turin, Pavia, Bologna, etc.

Honestly they can go almost anywhere.

Easyjet has relatively cheap flights from Nice to Rome. Taking the train from Rome to Milan isn't an issue. They could even stop in Florence

It might actually be faster to do a bizarre routing like flying into FCO and taking the train to Milan instead of taking the train from Nice to Milan. So don't assume you have to stick to the area near the border

I also prefer Lake Garda to Lake Como. Any of the towns in the Northern part of the lake are beautiful. It's much less crowded, less touristy, and less "Anglo-American" than Lake Como.

Thank you, all! Great feedback!:heart:

I am definitely going to advise them to look at Garda. I hadn’t thought about having them fly into FCO. That’s definitely worth considering.

Thoughts in the Ligurian coast area?

Camogli on the Ligurian coast is lovely. To get there from Nice involves taking the train to Genoa and then changing to a local train. There is no train from Nice that goes straight through to Genoa, you have to change trains at Ventimiglia. (I did this last summer, it was not a problem). I think there also may be a Flix bus. When I was organizing my travel last year I could find no direct flights between Milan and Nice. Hence the train.

It depends on what they want to do I think. The Ligurian coast is lovely for swimming, hiking, taking a boat trip, relaxing, good food.
Milan for at least a couple of nights might be fun for them, lots of things for young people to do there in terms of clubs and bars with other young people, shopping, galleries etc. Maybe a combo of Lake Garda and Milan.
As Jean noted though August is when Italians take their summer holiday and anywhere along the coast is going to be super busy. Any lake area likely to be busy too so they should really be looking at accommodation now.

We stayed several days at Hotel Du Lac Bellevue in Bardolino. Right on the water, great breakfast, bikes provided free to ride around Lake, near cafes and nightlife. Might check them out. There are many places, start now.

Both are lovely, but Garda is the more convenient location for this scenario.

Here's a suggestion. Train from Nice to Ventimiglia, Italy (1 hour) Then transfer train to Cuneo (and Turin) "train of wonders", offers a scenic 2.5 hour journey through the Roya Valley, spanning roughly 100 km with views of the Maritime Alps and Liguria. Maybe a night in Cuneo and then on to Turin for a few days.
Final day in Lake Orta which is only 1 hour from MXP. Google the Piedmont region for all the other wonders it offers,

This sounds intriguing. I haven't been to most of those places, only Torino (Turin), which we really enjoyed. I can almost guarantee that Lake Orta will be less crowded than either Como or Garda. It's a beautiful glacial lake, with a number of nice beaches. (I live in Italy and know it's reputation.)

Here is a website about the beaches of Lake Orta. It's in Italian, but you can paste the link into translate.google.com
https://www.impiegatagiramondo.it/it...gge-lago-orta/

Not much point listing options without the people involved mentioning interests.

I agree - given the average age of Fodorites we probably want something completely different to twenty somethings on a girls trip.
Without knowing more about what they want from the trip we can throw all sorts of suggestions out there and be very wide of the mark.
They are teachers, so they can read and research and hopefully are doing that to find what suits them best.

Just saw this Fodors article in my email….

https://www.fodors.com/world/europe/...etter-to-visit

Random thoughts... and perhaps a teaching moment for these young adults...

They are educated, professional young adults. It's fine to teach them the questions they should ask, but it may be better to "teach the teachers" how to be iniquisitive travel students themeleves. It may be very helpful to show them where and how you do your travel planning, but better in the long run for them to do their own reasearch, ask their own questions, and plan their own trip.

I say go to Garda, drink a lot, eat a lot, perhaps get nude with someone you care about and have a wonderful time, like all young people on holiday should do....even if they are teachers. Some things can't be taught. I say go for it.

It sounded as though they're interested in beaches. Or maybe that was the mother.