My husband and I will be starting our trip in Nice France and will be travelling through northern Italy for 10 days. Cinque terre, Florence, Venice, Lake Como area, and maybe leaving out of Milan are on our list if possible. Does anyone have a good recommendation on the best way to visit these places and possible day trips to other places? Also the best way to travel to these places?

Assuming you are spending any time in NIce you don't really have the time to see all of those other places in only 10 days. Or is the 10 days for AFTER you spend time in France.

If you want only northern Italy it;s better to land in Venice and leave from Milan or vice versa to prevent wasting time returning to you point of entry,

Also how many days do you actually have on the ground - not counting the day you come in from Nice and the day you depart - is that still 10 days - or are you down to 8 days.

What time o fyear are you going? What are your major interests? Have you been to any of these places before and loved them or been bored.

If it were me I ould do Venice, Florene and Lake Como - with 3 days in each. IMHO if you do more than 3 places you will be spending a LOT of time trekking around on trains versus actually seeing/doing things in Italy.

But perhaps you have very specific reasons for going to some of these places. IMHO Milan is primarily a business city and I wouldn't bother. CT is a series of tiny beach resort with hiking between them the main attraction. Is that your interest?

One of your principal decisions is whether you elect to self drive or use the train to move about.
We have been to all the places on your list without using a car but not within the very tight time limits you are working with.
We have gone by train from Nice to Cinque Terre for example but you can count on losing the best part of a day in transit. We have also travelled Nice-Milan and moved onward to both Varenna (Lake Como) and Venice and found no cause for complaint about the standard of service.
You seriously need to think about shortening your wish list however unless you are prepared to clock up most of your 10 days moving from one location to the next.
I would either elect to make the long journey from Nice to Venice and take in a few days in Varenna on the way back (you do not indicate from where you will be flying home from) or travel to Santa Margherita Ligure/Portofino, onward to Cinque Terre and then to Florence.

Yeah, even if you have a whole ten days, trying to see four distinct places is really only two days each after you figure in travel, so very tight.

I went from Nice to CT by train a couple years ago and it certainly ate up the majority of a day. Distance between all those other areas will be half a day at least.

I would start by trying to eliminate one place. Preferably two. But even with three days, that gives you about three days each which may not sound that different from two days but in reality it makes quite a difference. If the 10 days includes the travel day from Nice and the departure day then I'd cut it to two locations.

I love the CT area but it is so much more than just those five little villages. I prefer to base in Rapallo or Camogli and do the CT as a day trip. Also Portovenere, Portofino, Santa Marguerita. Lots of stuff that can keep you busy for 5 or more days, but three would be OK.

If you love art and want to visit the many museums and churches full of art then Florence would make sense as the second destination. If you are not so much into art then for this trip I'd skip Florence.

I'd probably pick Venice as my second destination and if you had more than three days you could do day trips to Verona and Padua (and possibly even Lake Garda - the southern end at least) if you wanted something in addition to Venice itself. Venice is mobbed with day trippers in the mid day but lovely early morning and evenings so doing day trips to other places from Venice can make sense, then spend you early/late hours in Venice when it's nice and quiet.

IF you have NOT been to Italy before I would leave Cinque Terre OUT. Lake Como is nice but I might leave that out as well.

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