Help with Venice / Florence / Varenna Itinerary
 

Very excited to finally get back to Italy. Went in 2017 to Rome / Amalfi Coast & took really enjoyable day tours through Tuscany & Pompeii.

Found a fairly reasonable flight deal to Venice Marco Polo Airport and back that would put us in Italy from Oct 3-16th. Thinking 3 nights in Venice, 6 in Florence (with days spent in Siena, Pisa, Lucca) and 4 nights in Varenna (spending some days exploring other areas around Lake Como via ferry.) Planning on connecting to and from these places via Train. I have never used the train in Italy before and I don't really know where to start. Would also have to take the train from Varenna back to an airport hotel at Venice Airport on the 16th to be ready for our flight home the next day. A few questions :

Is this a reasonable and doable Itinerary?

Will the weather in early-mid October be decent enough or should I hold off and try this trip next (late) Spring? Last time in Italy we went mid May and it was beautiful. My Mother is worried about the rain and the weather in Lake Como in October not being very nice. I know it's obviously unpredictable and out of our control but, Lake Como still nice enough in October?

What is train travel like in Italy? I will be only travelling with a small carry on, but my Mother brings a large suitcase everywhere. Will that be an issue for moving around on the train / switching trains in Milan to connect to Varenna?
Are there any rail passes I should consider to save some money? Or book everything individually?

Any help & info would be greatly appreciated. New to this site, hope this is okay to post here.

Hi welcome to Fodors. Just quickly on the trains, train travel in Italy is good, for information look at this site: themaninseat61

When looking for train schedules make sure you use the Italian spelling of cities: i.e. Venezia (Venice) and Firenze (Florence).
In terms of your mother's suitcase, is she (or you) able to easily lift it onto and off the train? There is a luggage rack at the end of every train car for bigger suitcases, small cases can sometimes go on a rack above your heads or at your feet.

It may have been easier to do a multi city flight, in to Venice but flying home from Milan to save backtracking to Venice. Are you locked into your flights?
Re: weather, it should still be pleasant in October, (I've been there in October a couple of times) Lake Como may be iffy weather wise at that time. You can always Google October weather for your destinations and see the historical weather.

I think your itinerary is doable, remembering that 3 nights gives you 2 days, 6 nights gives you 5 days etc.
Any trip to Italy is a good trip imo, enjoy! And ask all the questions you like on this site.

as raincitygirl says but it is www.seat61.com and he is on here off and on so really difficult questions may be picked up

Talk to your mother about clothes and discuss the idea of washing machines, AirBnB etc to see if that will reduce the load.

Yes, thanks bilboburgler for the correct site information.

Thank you for the quick reply. Good to know about the luggage racks on each train car. I will be lifting it around for her, but I'll manage.
I did consider booking separate one way flights to Venice and from Milan but the price difference was not worth it, over an extra $1000 each, so we settled on taking the 5 hour train ride (just googled this , not sure how accurate that is ) from Varenna to Venice Airport Hotel for our last day.
Flights and Airbnbs are booked, now I just need to figure out all the trains I need to book and hope for good weather!

I suppose the gardens at Villa Monastero in October won't be anything like what I keep seeing in photos, given the time of year we are going. Oh well!

You would certainly not want two, one-way flights. You would book something called “multi-city” flights, into one city and home from another. They are usually not much more than RT into and from the same city.

I would allow more time in Venice to explore the islands in the Lagoon and to visit Padova and perhaps Vicenza. If the weather seems too cool for the Lakes, you could always visit Verona, Bergamo or Milan.

If you keep the flights into and out of Venice, consider going straight on to Florence on arrival and putting Venice at the end so you will not have another hotel just for the last night. Some flights do depart really early from Venice though, so depends on what you get.
The landscape in places can be a bit bleak by October, and Venice has been flooded when I was there in Fall, but IMHO, Italy is great any time You can get there. Unless there is another great place you would want to visit in October, go ahead with your plans for Italy.

What Sassafrass says. IMO you are seriously selling Venice short, especially if it's your first stop as you are very likely to lose at least one day to jet lag. Far better to use your first day to travel to Florence [airport bus to Mestre, pick up train to Florence there], then Varenna and finally your stay in Venice which I strongly urge you to up to 4 nights which after all will only give you 3 days. One good thing is that you hopefully you won't need to worry about flooding [acqua alta] as since the catastrophic flooding of November 2019, they have started to use the Mose flood defence system which so far has worked a treat.

For figuring out trains I suggest downloading the Trenitalia app onto your phone - you can book and pay for tickets as well as research train timetables.

Thank you for the replies! Much appreciated. I think I have found a decent flight that I may switch my dates for. Fly into Milan on September 10th and fly home from Venice on September 24th. A couple hundred dollars more each to make the switch but I'm sure I'd be happier with the weather and scenery for those dates. We'll have to give up our Airbnbs as they're booked for those dates but I'm sure I can find new ones. Maybe stay in Bellagio as there is a good one available there, and just visit Varenna instead.
I'll consider taking a day off of Lake Como and adding it to Venice so we have time to check out Padova or Vicenza. Thanks for the recommendations.

It looks great, scrowe89. It's very personal but I'd take a day longer in Venice. Too bad about other into Venice and out of Milan high cost. In the past, International flights out of Venice left the earliest in the day so, yes, train from Varenna the day before. There are hotels near the airport. If you can get there early enough, a trip to Padua is doable.

OTOH, what if you go to Varenna first? Then Florence and end in Venice? From our Venice hotel, husband and I took the night* Vap to the taxi stand in Piazzale Roma and were at the airport in plenty of time. It would save needing a third hotel. *Very early so beware you night owls!

Trains in Italy are wonderful! Oh, the station name of Varenna is Varenna-Esino. When we were there it was an unmanned station so get roundtrip tickets when you buy them.

That's great news, scrowe and I congratulate you for being prepared to change your plans. Your new itinerary looks far more doable.

I missed your change post! Sorry, scrowe89 but good in and out ease!

Oh, so much better dates! It will still be crowded in Venice in September, but the weather will be nicer for the Lakes, and by time you get to Venice, it will be perfect, IME. Good on you for making changes. Do give those extra days/nights in Venice, Burano is lovely in September.

I think this sounds good, a couple hundred dollars more is worth it I think to maximize your time and not to have to backtrack. Also yes, September you are more sure to have nice weather.

**Flights and Airbnbs are booked, now I just need to figure out all the trains I need to book and hope for good weather!**

If you don't end up switching flights and fly in/out of Venice, put all your stay in Venice at the end of your trip so you have one less hotel change. You could fly into Venice and take the train to Florence on arrival day (it's 2 hours if you book a fast train). Stay in Florence a few days then take the bus to Siena (the rapid bus is better than the train and drops you at the historic center). After Siena, you could head to Como a few days before leaving for your last few days in Venice.

While seat61 has a lot of train info, he doesn't link to the actual train companies for purchasing in most cases. For your routes, Trenitalia will be the company operating the trains. There is also another train company between major stations only, but doesn't service small stations like Siena or Varenna. That company is Italotreno (not to be confused with the reseller that seat 61 links you to with a similar name).

These are the official train companies:

https://www.trenitalia.com/it.html

https://www.trenord.it/en/ (Trenord operates in Lombardia around Milan airport, some Como area trains)
https://www.trenord.it/linee-e-orari...-nostre-linee/

https://www.italotreno.it/en

If you are using the English version of an Italian website, you often won't get as many options or some links don't work. Switch to the Italian version and try again.