Northern Italy - Milan or Italian Lake District
 

Hello,

My fiance and I are in the preliminary stages of planning our honey moon for next August (2016). We are planning on going to the south of France and northern Italy. We are limited to 2 weeks total for our trip. We would like to have plenty of relaxing time in addition to sight seeing as this trip will immediately follow our wedding.

So far we are thinking:
Day 1: Arrive in Nice (early AM) and travel to Cannes
Day 2: Cannes
Day 3: Cannes
Day 4: Cannes (Day trip to Monaco)
Day 5: AM travel to Cinque Terre
Day 6: Cinque Terre
Day 7 Cinque Terre
Day 8:AM travel to Florence
Day 9: Florence
Day 10: Florence (wine tour)
Day 11: Florence (potential day trip to Pisa)
Day 12: AM travel to either Lake Garda or Milan
Day 13: Lake Garda or Milan
Day 14: Mid-morning flight back to US out of Milan

I am wondering if it is worth it to try and get Lake Garda (or Lake Como) into to the trip or if our time will be better spend in Milan. I was envisioning spending our last couple of days relaxing by the water but I don't want to miss out on Milan if it is a must see.

Thanks!

Lake Como is much closer and so beautiful. I would include it.
In France..why Cannes? And. Ostly why a day trip to Monaco? There are so many better places for a day trip such as Cap Ferat or Antibes .

I would take a day away from south of France and Cinque Terra and add to Lake Como. I would plan to head to Milan a day early for flight home and to be able to see some of Milan and have easy trip to airport.

(I would also skip Cannes and Monaco. Stay in Nice; Cap Ferrat is lovely.)

Stay in Milan and take the train to Lake Como. We stayed at Hotel Berna in Milan, which had the best breakfast I have ever had. The train station is only a couple of blocks from the hotel and you can take the train right to the airport. See my blog about our time in Italy. http://winenchocolate.com/Http:/wine...ate.com/milan/

I agree, why Cannes? It reminds me of Ft. Lauderdale.a

Thanks all! I had originally thought we would go to Cannes because we wanted to go to a beach and read it had a better beach than Nice but it sounds like maybe Cape Ferrat is the way to go.

Thanks!

If you want a nice beach. It is close to being sand rather than pepples/rocks.

http://www.beyond.fr/villages/villefranche.html

There are cruise ships that drop anchor there for a day, but perhaps you can find out when they are in port.

The beach in Juan les Pins (the west side of Antibes) is a lovely sandy beach while many others in the area are rocky beaches. We stayed I. The Eden Hotel, which was close to the beach, a nice place to stay, and reasonably priced. Our room had a pretty beach view. Both Nice and Monaco, which we visited by train from Juan les Pins, were very busy and not as charming as the smaller towns along the coast.

We only flew into Milan but did spend 3 days in Bellagio on Lake Como and loved it. The mid-lake boat carries you between the small towns, each of which has a different charm.

To me, it all depends on what you are into. I actually stayed in Nice for 4 nights as well, but spent a day and a half in Cannes, and did a day trip to Monaco. I think that Cannes is beautiful. It is crowded and can have a touristy vibe, but the beach itself and the people who are there were lovely. I would maybe suggest staying in Nice (I stayed at Hôtel Vacances Bleues Le Royal Promenade des Anglais) your first couple days and day tripping from there. It's in between Cannes and Monaco. If I could suggest what to do those first days, I'd do something like this:

- Arrive in Nice and check into your hotel, then explore the city. They have a great city market, beautiful harbor, and just overall incredible views of the water. Lots of great places to eat (mix of French and Italian cuisine).
- Do a day trip the next day to Cannes. You can do the beach, explore the city, etc. I swam out with my companion out to one of the floating docks and relaxed out in the water. It's quite stunning.
- I'd then do a day trip where you mix in a city like Antibes, but I'd recommend Eze. It's in between Nice and Monaco. It's a medieval city that goes up much higher than the hills/mountains of Nice/Cannes. It is a very hilly walk, so you'd need to be in good shape to do it quickly at all. Then you could go from there to Monaco. I spent my evening there and drank at a bar by the harbor which was full of yachts and fancy cars. Lots of James Bond vibes given off in the area. Then we hopped a train back to Nice that night... literally, hopped on without a ticket, but it worked out. Just be careful about that.
- Then do one full day in Nice again, taking in the city and seeing anything you haven't seen.

This is all just my preferred. The whole area is incredible.

I also went to Lake Como in a trip to Italy and stayed in Varenna. You'd definitely want to stay there, Menaggio, or Bellagio on Lake Como, not the city of Como. Good luck and enjoy the honeymoon!

In August, a great many things in Milan are closed, although of couse museums and historical sights stay open, but most can be seen in a day unless you are very keen on Italian art and history. Rather than stay in Milan and day trip to the lakes, consider do it the other way around.

Also, if you mainly want lake + relaxation, rather than the tourist check-list for Italy, consider visiting Lago Maggiore rather than Lago di Garda or Lago di Como. If you need to get to Malpensa for your departure, you can do so very easily from Lago Maggiore (town of Stresa), whereas trying to do that from Lago di Garda means staying on the fairly unscenic south end of the lake (which will be packed with families going to the amusement park there). From Lago di Como there is no easy way to get to the airport unless you pay for a private transfer (although for your honeymoon, you might not mind the splurge).

But bottom line is that from the lakes you can easily visit Milan for a day (easiest from Stresa) if you are curious.

I've never been to Maggiore or Garda, but if you're young, there's not much to do on Lake Como. It seems to me more suited to garden-loving pensioners or shopaholics than to young honeymooners. I'm pretty well on with the years myself, and I thought it was dull. Within 24 hours we'd visited 2 villas (Villa Carlotta and Villa Melzi), two lakeside towns (Varenna and Bellagio) and the old churches in those towns. We'd also hopped all around the lake on the ferries (using a day ticket). Shopping is not my bag (ha!) and I was ready to move on.

The scenery is nice and the villas have lovely gardens. (They'd be at their loveliest in April and May when the rhododenrons and azaleas are blooming, or maybe in autumn when the camelias are blooming.)

The towns were full of Americans, with a sprinkling of English and Germans, and a few French and Spanish. The proprietor of our hotel told us there are some Italian visitors in August. At a lakeside bar in Bellagio, we ordered something to drink and the server asked us if we could speak English!

Honeymooners usually can figure out how to while away the time deightfully in the midst of romantic setting.

In my opinion there's always lots to do in Milan, even in August. However, Milan is the Italian capital of the "afa", the muggy heat which is at its worst in August. I would hesitate to plan on a holiday there in August. Our town in Le Marche is full of Milanesi in August who are escaping the heat. Most of them are the children and grandchildren of people who migrated there for work, and who held on to the family house precisely to be able to use it in August.

I like Sandra's suggestion of Lake Maggiore, which is convenient to the airport. I believe there are shuttle buses from there to Malpensa. Although I've never been there, relatives of ours go there fairly often in the summer, and it sounds to me as though there's more to do there than on Lake Como.

>> It seems to me more suited to garden-loving pensioners or shopaholics than to young honeymooners.<<

I must be misinformed. I was told by many Italians that Lake Como is a top honeymoon destination in Italy.