i am kane,

See http://www.knowital.com/html/knowita..._to_lucca.html for a quick look at Lucca.

Henry

Thanks Bob and Henry. I'll investigate Lucca today.

Right now, we have decided on this itinerary:

Ischa: AR May 3rd, LV May 6th (AM)

Bologna: AR May 6th, LV May 7th (late morning)

Varenna: AR May 7th, LV May 13th (AM)

Our AA flight out of Malpensa is at 12:00 noon.

All of the above travel will be on the Eurostar trains because of their speed and efficiency moving us around Italy.

Since we will have 5+ days in Varenna, would it be possible for us to take a one-day (roundtrip) visit to a town in Switzerland?

Given that yo've only got 10 days, i would not apend a whole day [more of les] travelling in the "wrong" direction. There was a thread I found a couple of weeks ago about travel around southern tuscany, which would make a great base for 5 days, followed by the rest of the trip on one of the lakes - probably doesn't matter which one!
10 days is too short for more than two bases, IMO.

Varenna is close to Switzerland.
Here are three ideas:
#1 Ferry across the Lake to Menaggio. There is bus service from Menaggio into Switzerland and on to Lake Lugano. You can stay on the bus to Lugano or change to boat service as your schedule allows.
#2 Train from Varenna to Chiavenna. Take a bus to Soglio and surrounding areas.
#3 It might not be doable in a resonable day but the train ride from Tirano, Italy to Pontresina/st Moritz, Switzerland is very, very nice (spectacular). But that would be a long day.

annhig,

How am I traveling in the "wrong" direction? Our departure flight is out of Milan.

Big_Red

Yes, I see it is doable, but a lot of time would be spent on a train - not worth it.

Thanks for your input.

Big_Red,

Sorry, I forgot to mention it was #3 I was referring to in my last post.

I have a couple of questions:

Option #1: You wrote "You can stay on the bus to Lugano or change to boat service as your schedule allows."

Would you explain that further? What boat service, on which lake, and to what destination?

Option #2: I located Chiavenna on a map. (You wrote "Take a bus to Soglio and surrounding areas.&quot I can't find Soglio on my map - can you tell me how I would get from Chiavenna to Soglio?

Would either of these two scenarios be an enjoyable, satisfying day trip from Varenna?

#1 The bus service to Lake Lugano leaves out of Menaggio. The eastern most town on Lake Lugano is Porlezzo. Gandria is between Porlezzo and Lugano and is supposed to very, special.

#2 Soglio is about 10km east of Chiavenna up the Val Bregaglia on the way to Majola and St Moritz. Please do a Google image search on Soglio for some ideas. I believe that there is Post bus service but I have never done that.

I hope that this helps.

Big_Red,

I'll get my Italy map out tonight and go over your instructions/directions.

Mille grazie.

hi i am kane - well when you look at your map, you will see that Capri and the Bay of naples generally are some way south of Rome, and therefore a long way south of Milan!
THat it not to say that your trip isn't "doable" but it is not something that I would choose to do. The trip from Rome to Capri wil ltake one, day, and the trip from Capri to Milan/lakes another - which is a big chunk out of 10 days.
If you had 2-3 weeks not so bad.
i like the elba idea a great deal more, for that very reason. There are also thermal spas in tuscany.
Good luck with whatever you choose - no trip is perfect.

Hi annhig,

I've done the Rome to Capri route twice on two separate trips, and it never took more than 1/2 a day. Our arrival time is 7:15 a.m. in FCO.

From the Termini it is a 1 hr., 27 min. ride on the AV train, or 2 hr. on the Eurostar. The hydrofoil is no more than 30 min. from Naples to Capri. Maybe you didn't read what I wrote earlier about my traveling from Rome to Capri:

"In July, six of us were in cabs (with one pc. of luggage each) by 6:35 a.m., arrived the Termini by 6:50 a.m., left Termini at 7:35 a.m., arrived Naples at 8:52 a.m. We were in the next taxi cab by 9:00 a.m. and at Molo Beverello by 9:15 a.m. The hydrofoil left the port by 9:20 a.m."

Also, we are stopping in Bologna on our way north, which will give us an opportunity to visit this city for the first time.

I may be wrong, but I don't think it is easy to get to Elba from Rome. There isn't a direct train. Wouldn't I have to get to Piombino first (how?), then take a hydrofoil to Isola d'Elba (35 min.). Then, I need to get a train to Bologna.

If you want some relaxing time in Italy, I would highly recommend the Lakes region, especially if you want to end your trip in Milan. I have recently been to Lake Como and Lake Maggiore, and they are both a short train ride from Milan. As far as dolce vita, it doesn't get any better than this. Picture a huge lake surrounded by mountains, with ferry boats criss-crossing the lake to take you to the various little towns that surround it. In the case of Lake Maggiore, you have the added bonus of having three islands to visit and they are really beautiful.

FYI, in Lake Como I stayed in the town of Varenna which is very small and quaint. Not much to do there but you can hop on a ferry and visit a different town every day. In Lake Maggiore, I stayed in Baveno which is a slightly bigger town, although smaller than the more popular Stresa where all the big hotels are. If you decide to stay in Baveno, I highly recommend Albergo Rigoli which is located right on the lakeshore. They have the best breakfast buffet I've seen in all of Europe and their rates are relatively affordable at 110 Euros per night for a double.

I suspect that in May, the Lakes would be even more breathtaking because the some of the surrounding mountains would still have a bit of snow at the top.

Good luck!

Hi again - if you are determined on the islands in the bay of naples, why not go the whole hog and go for Ischia? apart from the fact that it is vrey small to recommmend it, and therefore presumably it is very quiet, it also has the gardens made by lady Walton [widow of Sir william Walton] [English composer of the 20th C; most famous work "Belshazzar's Feast]. Unfortunately, my gardens of italy book does not metion it, so you might hav to do a bit of digging [sorry] to find out about it, were you really interested.
for relaxation, i relly like the idea of the lakes, especially at that time of year.
Let us know what you decide.
PS i also like the idea of Ischia cos my daughter's italian teacher come from there!

I agree w/ annhig (see her above, and my post a few back) that Ischia, at least in May, is very kicked-back and relaxing! And the gardens ARE lovely and easy to get to. We heard a nice chamber concert of William Walton's work while there.

And the hot springs are very soothing and, so they say, healing...

Thanks to annhig, annabelle and littlefrenchbird.

We have decided on Ischia (been to Capri twice). It is larger, more level than Capri, and offers thermal spas.

I'm thinking to keep the traveling down, we should probably find a hotel in either Ischia Ponte or Casamicciola. Am I going in the right direction with this?

Also, the "lakes" are throwing me a bit. I'd like to stay in all the towns, but that's not possible. Since we definitely would like to take either a bus ride or train ride over the border into Switzerland, that may have an impact on where we stay.

However, we still have the concern of getting to Malpensa for a 12:00 noon flight.

Is Menaggio our best choice?

We stayed in upper Casamicciola and we really like the town and the location, although it seems most people here on fodor's prefer Sant' Angelo...

The island is not big, however, and we easily made our way to most places (and a long daytrip to Pompeii)in our 4 night stay. There is bus service around the island. On strike for part of our stay (hey, Italy!) but we still got around OK with taxis and rides from our hotel "neighbors" that day.

If you go to Lake Como, Menaggio is NOT your best choice in terms of getting back easily to Malpensa. The best choice would be staying in Varenna, which is a one-hour train ride to Milano central station, and from there you can catch a bus to Malpensa. I checked the train schedule and there are trains from Varenna to Milan at 6:47, 7:25 and 8:23 a.m. All of those would get you to Milan in time to reach Malpensa for a noon flight.

If you go to Lake Maggiore and you want to explore Switzerland, there are ferry boats that can take you there, since the northern edge of the lake is in Swiss territory. No need to worry about buses or trains. I really liked staying in Baveno but you would try Stresa or Verbania.

Honestly, whichever lake you pick, you don't need to stay in every town because both lakes offer great ferry transportation - the boats are cheap, frequent, and they take you across the lakes in less than half an hour. It really makes more sense to pick a town as your home base and explore the other towns by taking ferry boats.

As littlefrenchbird points out, Lake Maggiore offers easy access to both Switzerland and Malpensa: the northern end of Lake Maggiore is actually in Switzerland (so you can include ferry in your list of possible means of access) and you can book a driver to take you to Malpensa in the morning. This ride cost me 80 euro from Stresa to MXP, and took less than an hour (so for my 11:00 AM flight I left the hotel at 8:30 and had all sorts of time to shop duty free at the airport).

A popular trip is to take the boat up the lake to Locarno, the narrow gauge railway from Locarno to Domodossola (a reportedly spectacular trip), and then the regular train from Domodossola back to your starting point on the Italian section of the lake.

You can also take a cable car/funicular up from the lakeside to various mountain locations, where you can do a bit of hiking and eat lunch at a mountain inn, either in Italy or in Switzerland.

Actually, we did exactly what Therese suggests at Lake Maggiore - we took a funicular from Stresa to the top of a mountain and got amazing views of Lake Maggiore below and even other lakes in the distance(that's how high you are). We had lunch up there and it was lovely!

The lakes are so often missed by people doing the typical Venice-Florence-Rome circuit. It's a whole different Italy up there and it's well worth it.