tuscanlifeedit

I was going to say Umbria but others beat me to it.

How about the Dolomites and northern Veneto? I hear great things and it is on my list.

England: Cornwall and Devon are places that I love. The Lakes would be great too, and England is fairly different from the places you've been in the last several trips. I'm surprised no one has mentioned it.

And Norway with its fjords in climbing high on my list of places to visit.

dorkforcemom

Another vote for Bavaria...happy planning!

OReilly

If you like Spain from past experience, I would suggest Northern Spain, stretching from the Basque lands through to Galicia. You may also want to include the French Basque region.

In Italy, Umbrian and Le Marche.

In France, the Dordogne.

Istanbul and Turkey should also be considered.

Regards Ger

mikewalsh

What a great list of ideas, thank you all so much. I think I'll systematically evaluate each one, the plusses and minusses, and narrow the list down. For some reason, I've felt a little guilty going back to Italy so many times and haven't considered re-visiting any places I've been before since there are so many places to see, but the Croatia/Slovenia/Venice combo is worthy of strong consideration. They all are candidates, really, I simply have to learn more about those places I'm ignorant of or have misconceptions about.

I will also look at my world map and see how close some of these areas are to each other.

Jan57, like you, we travel in July when our kids are out of school (unlike you, we travel without them. Hats off to you, I don't think we could do it). Your trips sound great, I may have more questions for you.