Can I improve this Northern Italy itinerary?
 

I'm planning for a trip July 2015 to Northern Italy. I have some flexibility re dates and number of days so before I buy the tickets I was wondering if anyone saw any major flaws in this itinerary or had suggestions for improvements. The first half of the trip I will be alone, then my husband flies over for the second half (poor guy gets limited vacation time).

June 30 arrive Milan 11:00 am, train to Torino for 3 nights (2 full days)
July 3 fly to Malta, 7 nights (6 full days) there
July 10 fly back to Milan, arrive 16:00 (Bergamo actually since it's RyanAir), night in Milan
July 11 train to Lake Garda for 3 nights (suggestions for best town to base in?)
July 14 train back to Milan for 3 nights (2 days, one of which is day trip to Pavia)
July 17 pick up husband and rental car, drive to Aosta for 5 nights
July 22 drive to Dolomites for 5 nights
July 27 drive to Bassano del Garpa for one night
July 28 to San Marino for 2 nights (day trip to San Leo)
July 30 to Urbino for 2 nights
Aug 1 to Rome for 1 night (drop car)
Aug 2 depart

Except for a day trip to Sirmione and 3 days in Milan on previous trips I have not been to any of these places.

Also any suggestions for specific things not to miss or hotels you liked (under 150€, preferably under 100€) would also be appreciated.

Thanks

Lake Garda. We enjoyed Salò on the western side of Lake Garda, lovely lakefront promenade, upscale shops. Hotel Bellrive overlooking the sailing marina.
On our return from the Dolomites, we stayed in Malescine, nice medieval quarter, castle , Hotel Castello.

Nice trip !
On Garda, I suggest 3 possible locations--all at the north end--Riva, Limone,or Malcesine.

Five days in Aosta seems like overkill, but I know you do your homework so I assume you have a plan.

With 5 nights in the Dolomites I would suggets 2 locations.

I hope you are taking your cameras !!

Sounds good to me too. I would investigate going straight to Lake Garda from Bergamo rather than back to Milan. Or stay in Bergamo.

You're flying into Bergamo - definitely spend that day and night in Bergamo. It is one gem of an old town and I really wonder why hardly anyone knows about it.

You might find Asolo a great deal more interesting than Bassano del Grappa.

Is there a reason you want to spend nights in San Marino? It is hard to think of a more tourist trap town in the neighborhood. Just about anyplace else will get you better food and cheaper lodgings. Were it me, I would go from Bassano del Grappa (or Asolo, actually) to the town of Brisighella and spend the night, and then see San Leo on the way to Urbino, and spend more nights in the Urbino/Montefeltro area.

There are only two train stops in Lago di Garda, both on the unscenic, southern shores of the lake. If you don't want to stay on the southern shore, then you need to figure out the logistics of how much time you want to spend getting to a town further north by boat or bus. If you are looking for a "base" from which you can do day trips without a car then only a couple of towns qualify. Do you know what you want to see on the lake?

Were it me, I would probably fly into Bergamo and go directly to Lago di Garda. After Lago di Garda, I would go directly to Pavia to spend the night so I could more conveniently see both the Certosa and the town of Pavia. After Pavia, I would go to Baveno on Lago Maggiore until it was time to go to Malpensa and meet up with husband. But I spend a lot of time in Milan and don't care for it much in summer, and you might have things you want to do there.

I like Aosta very much but a great deal of the thrill of staying in that area is to be able to get up in the morning and take walks though meadow valleys or climb up mountain trails, and ditto sunset strolls in pristine areas. If you really hate countryside stays, then put the majority of your time in Aosta, but I would still recommend at least one night or two in one of the quiet, gorgeous valleys, perhaps a town like Lillaz or a lodge in the Valgrisenche or Val di Rhemes Notre Dame.

Finally, I would want to get rid of that long drive from Urbino to Rome, but I suppose in reality there are not a lot of great options unless you spend less time in either the val d'Aosta or the Dolomiti and spend a night somewhere on the way from Urbino to Rome where you could drop off the car and take the train. . My pick would probably be Arezzo, or maybe a night in Spoleto with a car drop off the next morning in Foligno.

As others have said, go stay in Bergamo (in the old town) rather than go back to Milan yet again.

For choices other than Bergamo:

If the 4pm landing in Orio al Serio is what's drawing you to Milan, consider Brescia instead -- you can get on a bus at the airport and go there directly -- which would then position you well for continuing on to Lago di Garda, either by public transport or private car transfer. Despite all the WW2 bomb damage and industrial expansion, there are enough art and history sights in Brescia for an evening to make it intriguing, and you should be able to get a very comfortable hotel at an easy price, plus excellent eats and summer bubbly.

http://www.bresciatourism.it/en/visi...escia-art-city

In the alternative, the bus from the airport probably drops people off at the Brescia train station, and from there you could get a train to the southern shore of Lago di Garda in just a few minutes and have dinner and spend the night there. The next morning you would only need to go to the docks and catch a hydrofoil if you preferred to "base" in a northern shore town.

If you go back to Milan you are adding several hours of backtracking on buses and trains.

If you're arriving at Lake Garda by train, then you'll come in at either Desenzano or Peschiera del Garda. With only three nights I wouldn't want to start changing locations to the northern end, when Desenzano IMO is perfectly good for a short stay. Peschiera is OK too, but I'd go for Desenzano with more choice of hotels and restaurants and excellent boat links up the Lake to see some of the other towns.

The scenery up at Riva etc is more spectacular, i.e. mountainous and bothenavigator always recommends that end of the lake, but I do prefer the southern end. Once the day trip crowds have gone, the villages themselves are lovely during the light evenings. During the busy day, we're off round the lake and in July it'll be busy in most places anyway.

As far as arriving in Bergamo is concerned, there is no good reason to spend the night in Milan and then head back to Garda. You're halfway there in Bergamo, so as already mentioned, stay in Bergamo or Brescia. I'd personally go for Bergamo.

Presuming the 4pm flight lands on time, one has another 4 hours of daylight in July and 4 hours until dinner. If you choose to stay in Peschiera or Desenzano del Garda, it just isn't that far to get there that same night unless you have a reason to want to go someplace else that evening.

If you can free up a night to spend in Pavia instead then you might find it much easier to visit the Certosa, if that is what is drawing you to Pavia. The town is attractive, so that's reason enough, but the spectacular Certosa worth seeing is outside of the town, and it gets progressively hotter in July afternoons to tour. (It also might close for the pausa.) Spending a night there rather than day tripping might be enjoyable.

You can go directly from Pavia to Malpensa airport, I believe, on TreNord.

Thanks so much for all the great replies.

My biggest concern is the one many of you addressed - how and when to get from Bergamo airport to Lake Garda. The only town I could reasonably expect to get to with a flight not getting in till 4pm is Desenzano. I actually spent a few hours there on my day trip to Sirmione and found the town much nicer than the guidebooks made it sound. But still, I'd much rather spend three nights further north on the lake. Because of that, it means my choices for the night are Milan, Bergamo and Brescia.

I was in Bergamo (also day trip) the last time I was in Milan and absolutely loved it. So I very well may decide to spend the night there. But logistically, it's actually just about exactlyl the same amount of time to just take the airport bus to Milan and the next day take a one hour train to Desenzano as it is to take the bus into Bergamo and then take a 1 and a half hour train to Desenzano.I didn't know you could take a bus directly from the airport to Brescia but thanks to Sandra now I do so I'm definitely considering that now.

Thanks for the suggestions re towns to base in Lake Garda. Mid lake seems to make the most sense in terms of seeing various places along both ends but the towns of Limone,,Malcesine and Riva sound the nicest. I'll check out some of the hotels mentioned.

Since both bob and sandra seems to think 5 nights/four days in Aosta may be more than I need (which I was questioning myself) maybe I'll take a day off that.

But here's another question. I've long been wanting to visit Viterbo. Given that it's 2 hours from Rome I always end up deciding against it as a day trip. I'm actually going to be in Italy in March next year as well and will be spending some days in Orvieto and thought I'd do Viterbo as a day trip from there but now I'm finding that's even worse than from Rome. So now I'm wondering if it makes sense to do it on this summer trip instead, en route from Urbino when we would have a car (which I won't have in March). Would an overnight here make sense? Or should I just do it from Rome when I'm there in March. Or just forget about it altogether?

Sandra - San Marino just looks really cool to me. I figured we wouldn't arrive till late afternoon day 1 and do a day trip to San Leo the next so we'd be there just a couple of late afternoon/evenings when hopefully the day trippers would be gone.

Thanks for all your suggestions - and keep them coming.

I don't think 5 nights is too much for the valle d'Aosta. I think making the town of Aosta a "base" for 5 days, sleeping in town every night, puts you in lesser position when it comes to enjoying being totally surrounded by natural beauty and big cows, rather than towns. I spent more than 5 nights in the valle d'Aosta, but I divided my stays between small alberghi ristoranti and agriturismi in Verrayes, Planeval, Valnontey and Aosta (town). All these places served me dinner and breakfast, and I spent my mornings walking in the valleys or climbing near waterfalls, had lunch, walked or hiked again in the afternoon, had dinner. The sights of Aosta (town) are wonderful and very much worth seeing, and it is quite a pleasant town to spend a night or two. But it is quite special to stay in one or two of the quiet villages or agriturismi. Life goes on there in a very traditional way for the most part. It is not all tourism like Switzerland. But it is not unsophisticated either. However, if you prefer towns, then Aosta is the only one with much interest.

As for Viterbo, if at all possible, for this trip, I would stay there on your way to Rome for a night.

If you look at the website for Orio al Serio airport you can see the ground transportation options. I would think that in high summer you could very easily get to the southern shore of Lago di Garda by dinnertime. It is simpler if you take the bus to Brescia and switch (it's 15 mins from there to the lake). But even if you go from the airport to Bergamo station (10 minutes, you don't need to go back to Milan. There are other switches you could make that would connect you to trains bound for the southern lake towns and you'd be there in 90 minutes. Your flight from Malta would have to be significantly delayed to make getting to the lake by the summer dinner hour impossible.

In September we spent 5 nights in Bolzano and loved it. Spent most days driving around exploring the area but Bolzano was interesting itself.

Having stayed in Asolo and visited Bassano, I agree that Asolo would be more charming than Bassano. We loved our stay in Asolo.

You have never been to Rome and you are only giving it one night?

You might also look into dropping off your car in Viterbo if you are planning to stay in Rome proper your final night rather than the airport.

One other thought: If you take the Orio al Serio airport bus to Brescia station, you could check out the cost of getting a private car transfer to Salo on the lake for just that one night instead of a city stay. It is about a 30 minute drive and probably any hotel in Salo would be willing to make the arrangements. You can probably just get a taxi outside the station. Might really be worth it.

Again, unless you have reasons for wanted to spend days and nights in Milan, it is really much simpler and cheaper to go directly from the lake to Pavia. Even if you wanted to spend the day in Milan, you could put your luggage in Milano Centrale and go sightseeing before heading on to Pavia to spend the night. From Pavia, it is 90 minutes to Malpensa (with one switch).

Thanks again. I'm going to read up on Brescia and see if I want a stop there, still considering going back to Bergamo itself - but I'll definitely do one of those rather than going into Milan for that night. I'm also going to think about staying in Pavia - but I do have a hotel I really like in Milan and there are a few things I do want to do there but thanks for the suggestion. Always nice to have options.

Oh, the airport I'm picking my husband up at is Linate not MXP.

Also going to really try and find a way to work Viterbo in. Although I can't see how dropping the car there would work since we have an 11:00 am flight and don't see how I could get to FCO from Viterbo by public transportation. I guess if we were willing to get up at 4am. But that would be a lot of connections on the day of a flight, not sure I'm up for that. But maybe we could steal a night from somewhere else and add it in.

eck - Glad you like basing in Bolzano - that is where we were thinking of. Did you write a trip report about that trip? And we are planning on Asolo as well as Bassano del Grappa.

Have been to Rome lots of times including last summer and this coming March. The one night there is just to make the flight.

There is a bus that goes directly from Pavia to Linate.

http://www.migliavaccabus.it

I would spend the last night in Rome. I would not suggest spending it in Viterbo. Personally I would go from Urbino to Montefiascone, see that, then head to Viterbo, drop off car, spend the night, take train to Rome the next day and spend final night in Rome. Take car service to the airport for the 11 am flight. If that doesn't work and you still want see Viterbo, then next best would be leaving Urbino and arriving in Viterbo in time for lunch, and then leaving Viterbo in time to make it an airport hotel by dinner. I wouldn't spend the night in Viterbo if you have an 11am flight. You'd need to get up or 4 or 5am anyway to make sure of reaching the airport and dropping off your car in time to get through security in July.