Northern Italy Itinerary Help
 

Hello, We are traveling to Italy in July and have 8 full days. We are flying in and out of Milan. We will be traveling with our children ages 17 and 20. We have plenty of places we would like to visit and they include : Valle D'Aosta, Lake Como or Maggiore, Cinque Terre, Portofino, Lucca, Pisa and or San Gimignano, and Venice. I know that is is way too much for our short time period so feel free to cut from our itinerary. I will say that a trip to Venice is a must but I am happy with an overnight or just a day trip. Also not sure of the best way to see Cinque Terre .. whether to stay in one of the 5 villages or make a day trip to the area. I will add that we had a tough time choosing between Switzerland and Italy - we were thinking that a visit to the Lakes and or Valle D'Aosta would give us the best of both worlds. We will have a car for this trip. We are not big museum people. We love walking, moderate hikes and the idea of renting bikes to ride around walled cities (Lucca) really appeals to us. We don't make a big deal about food but do enjoy local markets and cafes. We would be open to staying in 2 or 3 locations and making long day trips for the convenance of having a "home base." Any advice would be welcome and very much appreciated.

If Venice is a "must" then consider combining it with the Dolomiti mountains so you don't regret losing Switzerland. Maybe the easiest thing to do with the short amount of time that you have is to land in Milan but go straight to Lago di Garda to enjoy the lake, but then move on up to the Dolomiti to do some hikes. After that, drop down to Venice. I highly recommend that you spend more than one day in Venice -- and stay long enough to make one of your days a trip to Ferrara so you can go biking around the walls. But then you need to go back to Milan. If you like, you could spend your last day in Italy on Lago Maggiore (town of Stresa or Baveno) and drive yourselves to Milan Malpensa airport in the morning for your flight.

Thank you! I will look into the Dolomiti Mountains and into Ferrara. Although family really wants Cinque Terre as well. Will get out the maps! Thanks again!

Even assuming that your 8 full days in Italy excludes your arrival and departure days, you will still have a hard time including both coasts of Italy. And if you want to do that, a car will be more of a nuisance than an asset.

Best itinerary for you might be land in Milan, immediately take a train to Venice. After a few nights in Venice, take a train to Lucca and spend some nights there. Then go to le Cinque Terre by train, and then take a train up to Milan the night before your flight out.

You could rent a car from Venice onward, to give you some flexibility about day trips. But you must book hotels with guaranteed parking and realize that in July you are going to get a lot of traffic jams on the coast (especially if around Portofino) and you must be very careful where you drive in towns and cities because some streets are only open to residents.

In order to include as many of your destinations as possible, my suggestion is the following: day 1 in Milan to see the World Expo; day 2 in Stresa where you can walk /bike along the Lake Maggiore shores and take a short boat trip to the Borromees isles; day 3 in Portofino from where many hiking trails start; day 4 in Cinque Terre (drive to La Spezia then take a train to Riomaggiore); day 5 in Lucca; day 6 in Pisa. Now my suggestion is to drive to FLorence, leave your car and take a train directly to Venice, where you can spend day 7 and 8. Enjoy!!

if luciafamily's itinerary appeals to you, then I would suggest these "tweaks"

Go to Stresa on Day 1 and Milan on Day 2

Don't stay in Portofino. Either stay in Camogli or Santa Margherita Ligure, or Rapallo. I would recommend not changing hotels but visiting le Cinque terre by train only from the Portofino area, even though it means a longer drive to Lucca the next day.

From Lucca you could visit Pisa by train without switching hotels. Since you are not "museum people", I would skip Florence except to drop off your car there (at the airport is easiest, take the shuttle to the train station). But then onto Venice by train, and back to Milan by train.

thank you both. This is so helpful. I will look into your suggestions, and think carefully about the car. We don't like crowds and definitely don't want to get caught in long traffic delays so it sounds like we should skip portofino. Also is the recommendation to just do cinque terre as a day trip based on our limited time schedule or based on it being too crowded to make it worth while to stay in one of the 5 villages for a night or 2? Thanks again for your help!!!

You certainly don't need a car, and while Portofino is crowded, it is easily accessed by boat from Santa Margherita, Rapallo or Camogli, so you can bypass the traffic jams.

My suggestion that you see le Cinque Terre as a day trip from a town a bit further was based on (a) that you avoid another hotel switch and (b) if you are driving and it is very difficult or expensive to find parking, plus you can get caught in traffic jams trying to get to the parking lots.

But since the towns of le Cinque Terre tend to get very crowded during the day, many people feel that the best experience of them is not a day trip, but to stay overnight. If you want to stay overnight and are driving, try to time your arrival to the end of the day so you face less traffic. From le Cinque Terre you can also do a day trip to Portofino but don't drive. Take the train to Rapallo and take a boat to Portofino from there.

But you could do this entire itinerary without renting a car:

Arrive in Milan and take the bus from Milan airport to Stresa
Take the train from Stresa to le Cinque Terre (day trip to Portofino)
Take the train to Pisa (day trip to Lucca by train, San Gimignano by bus)
Take the train from Pisa to Venice
Take the train from Venice to Milan

If you prefer to stay in Lucca rather than Pisa, then I would suggest taking the train to Pisa, stowing your luggage in the train station, seeing the sights, but returning to pick up your luggage and a rental car and driving to Lucca. Use the car to San Gimignano. You could consider driving to Venice after that, and dropping off the car there, but it might be simpler to return the car in Florence and take the train the rest of the way.

thank you. will look at some prices and times for trains. it may make sense just to keep a car for half of the trip. also like the boat idea to portofino. i looked up the other cities in the italian riveria that you suggested in a previous post and they look beautiful as well. it is going to be hard to decide where to stay.

getting back to the lakes.. if you were to pick one would you choose como or maggiore. you both mentioned maggiore/stresa in your posts. is it easier to get to from milan or less touristy or prettier than lake como? just needing to pick one :)