gidlaurie

My amazing husband just handed me my birthday present - we are going to Northern Italy for 6 days, arriving Friday morning August 28th into Milan, and leaving Wednesday evening September 3rd, also from Milan. We have been to Rome, but no where else in Italy!
Seeing as how this came as a surprise - my husband has planned the backbone of the trip already - I don't have much time to plan the details.
We will be staying in Verona, and in Mestre.
So far, our main question is, is there a difference in being in Venice over a "weekend", vs. during the week.
How would you build a travel plan, assuming arrival and departure from Milano, and overnights is Verona and Mestre???
As I work on this, I'll have more specific questions. Meanwhile, I am hoping to hear ideas from all of you Italy lovers!
THANKS!!!!!
From a very excited birthday girl!

gidlaurie

Forgot to add, we will have a rental car during the whole stay.

HappyTrvlr

Can you switch hotel from Mestre to Venice? It would be a much better experience and worth the increase in price.

annhig

I was going to say the same as HT. Not only that but if your intention of staying in Mestre is just to spend every day in Venice, you won't need a car. if you want to tour the Veneto, and just spend a day in Venice, there are probably nicer places to stay than Mestre. Also, your flying into and out of Milan is a bit weird if you're staying in Mestre and Verona.

IME there is no difference in weekends v weekdays in Venice - you would be better off thinking about the logistics of the trip. if you can change the flights, swap to return flights to Venice. If you can't, immediately you arrive get the train from Milan to Venice, spend 3 nights there, then on 31st August, get the train to Verona, spend 3 nights there, and on 3rd September, head for Milan.

have a great birthday!

MonicaRichards

I think you can do without the car if you stay in Venice and Verona. Take the train to get from Venice to Verona, and then if you do what to take a day trip somewhere like Sirmione there are easy buses that go there. Cars are a pain to park and driving is no fun, so skip that if you can.

sandralist

Yes, there is a difference between weekends in Venice and weekdays, perhaps especially in August. But with only 6 days, and your hotels and car already booked, I don't see much room for intervention from social media. You will probably have a fantastic time, despite the naysayers. Go with what you've got.

I would say your best plan of action is to use Amazon to rush order to you a guidebook specifically for Venice and for Verona. Both are exceptionally beautiful places. During the daytimes, both will be crowded with day trippers from about 10am to 4pm, so if you don't like crowds and queues, then plan your midday hours around the notion that you will head for less famous sights, and visit the super-famous sights first thing in the morning or after 5pm. (They stay open until 7.30pm) .

In Verona, the cocktail hour is sublime, and almost anywhere you walk is beautiful and interesting. Personally, I would avoid day trips to lakes, which will be heaving with tourists. For Venice, it can be marvelous to take a boat to some of the smaller islands in the lagoon to escape the crowds but also to understand the nature of the city built on water. However, you can find your own rhythm right in the heart of Venice, even in just a few days. The point is not to see the guidebook sights but to appreciate what Venice was in its days of glory and what it is today. Pack a good guidebook (for Verona too) and venture out in both cities with a freewheeling attitude. Both places have more than you can take in during a week, but even appreciating a sliver or two is quite tremendous, because those slivers of Verona and Venice are very, very rich per centimeter.

gidlaurie

Thank you, all, for your comments and suggestions. I am looking into switching to a hotel in Venice rather than Mestre.
Do others agree that a visit to Venice on Friday-Sat-Sun is similar to a visit to Venice on Mon-Tues-Wed?
We are debating the car issue.
Just for arguments' sake,
If you were driving from Venice to Verona, where would you stop for some pretty sight seeing - maybe a villa or a winery or a village?
Similiarly,
If you were driving from Verona to Milan, is there any particular places you would recommend seeing?
Thinking if we can use the travel days as sight seeing days. Or if it will just be "autostrade all the way". Maybe backroads?
Thanks for you help!

annhig

Do others agree that a visit to Venice on Friday-Sat-Sun is similar to a visit to Venice on Mon-Tues-Wed?>>

well, I'm agog to find out what Sandralist thinks that the difference will be, particularly in August, but until she deigns to elucidate, I'm struggling to think what it might be - all the museums and galleries will still be open, the restaurants will be doing business and the vaporetti and gondaliers will be plying their trade up and down the canals.

jamikins

Can you share your whole trip plan? If it is Venice and verona I would drop the car and take trains for simplicity as you don't need the car in the cities. It sounds like you plan to visit Venice for a few days where you won't need the car. If you have plans for exploring the countryside a car may make more sense.

Happy planning!

isabel

Another vote for NO CAR. Big PIA for this trip. Public transportation is fine and the scenery in this area is not that great between towns. The trains are fast and frequent.

I would either split the time between Venice (not Mestre) and Verona. If you can't find lodging IN Venice on such short notice then rather than stay in Mestre I'd stay in Padua, much nicer town and still only half an hour from Venice. In fact, in that case I'd probably stay in Padua the whole time and day trip to both Verona and Venice. I did that a few years ago and it was a great trip. However, I'd already been to Venice a few times. If it were my first trip I'd want to stay IN Venice. Sandralist is correct about the timing - mid day both towns will be swarming (especially Venice) so having evenings there would be best.

neckervd

Day trips from Verona:
Lake Garda: boat from Desenzano/Peschiera up to Riva, bus Verona - Riva, Riva - Rovereto, train Rovereto - Verona;
Mantova or Cremona or both;
Bergamo and Val Camonica (prehistoric rock carvings at Capo di Ponte).

Places to stop between MXP airport and Verona:
Milan, Bergamo
Places to stop between Verona and Venice:
Vicenza, Padua, Villas along the Brenta channel

MonicaRichards

neckervd, but is a car going to help or hinder with your trips? Trying to find parking will eat up so much time, better to take the train say from Verona to Vicenza and the public buses other places. I don't see that a car makes sense here at all, if you're staying in Venice you can't have one and in Verona there's no parking in the center of town either, which is where she should be staying.

sandralist

gidlaurie,

If you want to rent a car, it would be better if drew up a plan to drive it along scenic routes and backroads. Once you get off the main highway, you pretty much need to be committed to spending most of at least 2 days outside of Verona and Venice. It is just a different trip. Coming from Milan, you could aim for Riva del Garda (via Lovere on Lago d'Iseo) and then drop down to Verona. Between Verona and Venice, you could swing north of Vicenza to take in the prosecco wine country around Valdobbiadene, which would consume another day's worth of driving. Another idea would be to eliminate Verona entirely, and go from Malpensa to Riva del Garda (via Lovere) and then cross the Dolomiti national park (from Bolzano to Belluno) and then drop down to Venice.

With such a short lead time during August holidays, and if you have never driven in Italy before, you could end up making quite a hash of the trip to be frank. Verona and Venice are exceptionally beautiful European cities with excellent train transportation. For me, not clogging up a romantic fling to 2 such romantic destinations would be the real attraction, not an attempt a sightseeing northern Italy. Up to you. But bear in mind that in a car you are very likely to face time consuming traffic tie ups en route to scenic destinations and being stuck behind bus tour coaches as well a really serious competition for parking.

to the struggling agog annhig

Venice is always more crowded on weekends, when a great many Italians as well as foreigners visit and a great many Europeans within motorcycle or cheap flight reach of Venice come in for the weekend only. All this will be on top of the intensity of the busiest cruise and ferry season of high summer, many of the cruises beginning or ending in Venice on the weekends, adding to the crowds spending a night or three in advance of their cruise departure or following their cruise arrival.

Mimar

To elaborate, if taking a car to Verona (or almost any other Italian city), you don't want to drive in the historic center. It's restricted to locals. A camera will snap your license plate, the car rental company will identify you (and charge you for the service), and you will get an expensive ticket in the mail some months later. To avoid this, you will need to pay to park farther out and find your way into the center.

Venice has no streets, of course. From Mestre it's a short drive on the causeway from the mainland to Venice. You could leave the car at the Tronchetto, a large, expensive parking facility near the city. Or take the train from Mestre to Venice.

I strongly agree with the other posters. Stay in Venice proper, not Mestre. Otherwise you're cheating yourselves of an extremely romantic experience. And forget the car. It will just add problems. Take the train as much as possible to avoid traffic jams as well as the inconvenience and expense of parking. Trains go city center to city center. If you can commit now, buy your train tickets immediately for a considerable savings. Check out www.seat61.com for train travel and ticket-buying tips.

gidlaurie

Thanks again to all.
I am going to go through all of your suggestions tomorrow (it is night here already).
The flights are the only thing we can't change, arriving in Milan Friday morning, and departing Wednesday night.
My dream has always been Venice.
The travel agent, who may or may not know what she's talking about, said that the car will help us get out of Milan, vs. getting from the airport to the train station.
Personally, I only see a benefit to the car if we want to do some touring between cities.
The more I think about it, the more I see what so many of you are saying. This is a relatively short trip. We have never been to this part of Italy before. We have never driven in Italy before. It's a "romantic birthday trip". Maybe we should keep it simple.
The idea of Padua hadn't occurred to us - interesting idea to stay in one place and do day tours. I'm looking into staying in Venice proper. You can imagine, on such short notice, there are not many places to be had.
Welcome all thoughts, all chat. Don't worry about contradicting each other - in the end we will sort out what seems best for us! THANK YOU!

sandralist

Don't rely entirely on the internet to find out about hotel availability. E-mail hotels and b&bs directly. People here will also probably help you find some not-obvious choices if you post which nights specifically you want for Venice and which for Verona, and vice versa.

Your travel agent might get a kickback on package deals for car rentals. It is not hard to get out of Malpensa airport to the Milan train station. It is quite easy, by bus or train.

If your dream is Venice, do NOT stay in Padova. You will be very much restricted by train and bus schedules getting to and from Venice. The romance of Venice is at night, which is why (most) everyone is urging you to stay in Venice proper. But even if that were impossible, in my view, the closer-in Mestre (or the Lido), is better for accessing Venice than Padova is.

I also would discourage you from staying in one place and doing "day tours". You will spend chunks of each day just getting to and from the train stations, buying tickets, waiting on train platforms, dealing with possible train delays. During August especially, many towns take a VERY long lunch hour, since there is no air conditioning in many shops, churches and small museums. So you can end up in towns with everything shutting down shortly after you arrive.

It is better to take your time to see some of the "lesser" sights of Verona and Venice than it is to give over 3 hours of a day to commuting to other towns and back. For a romantic holiday, join the Italians in their custom of retreating from the midday heat after lunch to a cool bedroom for a …. rest. In Verona, try a late afternoon visit to the Giardino Giusti, or walk along the river to San Zeno. See the duomo, which surprisingly few tourists do. In August, you can hang out at the piazza Bra at midnight and listen in to the opera blaring away inside the Arena. In Venice, there is simply no end of smaller corners, boat rides, empty churches, tiny shops that still make small mosaics and metalworks, etc, and places to linger. It is especially nice to snooze a bit in the hot afternoon and then burn the midnight oil or be up at dawn and watch the city waking up.

isabel

My first preference would be to stay IN Venice. However, if on such short notice you can't find anything suitable, Padua (Padova) is a 26 minute train ride from Venice Santa Lucia (that's the one IN Venice, not Mestre). There are four or five or more per hour till 10pm (and then one more at midnight it looks like - see Trenitalia site). Mestre is between the two, it's about a 10-12 minute ride from Venezia S.L. So if you can find a hotel near the train station and don't mind that the area around the hotel is kind of a dump that would work too.

My preference if I were in your shoes would be to split the time between Venice and Verona and stay IN each town. But Padua is a lovely town itself, and if you find it works better to stay there for the Venice portion, then it might simplify things to just stay there the whole time. Verona is a 45 minute train ride from Padua (there are some that take longer, you need to check schedules obviously so you are taking a fast train).

sandralist

Be aware that most good restaurants in Venice do not start serving until 8pm, and that dinner in an Italian restaurant in not a rushed affair. Needing to be on a train by 10pm in Venice to get back to Padova pretty much eliminates the possibility of enjoying a romantic dinner in Venice.

If you cannot stay in Venice itself, I believe there are more options at night for getting back to Mestre or the Lido between 10pm and midnight, but you should confirm this with any hotel you book in specific detail.

I personally would not want to be on the train every day for an hour or 90 minutes every day using Padova as a "base", nice as Padova is. I would rather end my evening in Venice with a boat ride across the Lagoon to the Lido, or take the shorter trip to Mestre.

annhig

Venice is always more crowded on weekends, when a great many Italians as well as foreigners visit and a great many Europeans within motorcycle or cheap flight reach of Venice come in for the weekend only.>>

why on earth not say that before, Sandralist? I can't remember weekends being more crowded than weekdays in any of the trips I've made to venice, but then I've never even considered going there in August.

kawh

I am a huge Padova fan... but there's nothing like staying in Venice. You win, either way. I really don't think you need to bother with a car, unless you really want to get out to the countryside. On that front, if you are still considering Verona, we were just there this summer. We stayed at a place in the country, overlooking the city and valley around, and there was a bus about every 30 minutes in and out of verona to just a very short walk near our place! I think that you can easily have both city and country without a car... just depends on whether or not you want to do it that way. Have a great birthday!