Claudia

My husband and I are planning our own trip, and we are flying home from Venice. We want to spend the last 2-3 days seeing Verona and Padua. Which city would you recommend we use for home base? What inexpensive hotels would you recommend?

We love small, family-owned hotels--1-2 stars is all we need.

Thanks for your advice!
Claudia

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gac

Hotel Torcolo in Verona is 50 yards from Piazza Bra and the Arena. Quiet narrow street behind the Piazza. Can walk to train station in 15 minutes, or 4 minutes by bus. Two star property with air conditioning, clean and respectable, but not glitzy. Four storeys, 19 rooms. Popular with foreigners and opera artists. Restaurant downstairs. Reserve well in advance.

Ira

Hi Claudia,
You might wish to avoid the packing and unpacking by making Verona (1 1/4 hr) and Padova (1/2 hr) day trips from Venezia.
See www.trenitalia.com

abc

Another choice might be staying in Vicenza
http://www.vacans.it/vicenza-hotels/

goat

I haven't been to Verona, but have stopped in Padua. I think Verona might be better. Padua had sort of a rough quality to it. I felt a little unsafe there.

gac

Must be all those university students with long hair and beards (in Padova).

MH

We stayed in Hotel Torcolo in Verona. Unremarkable but very central.

Would prefer Verona over Padua but didn't really visit Padua. We got lost driving around Padua one rainy evening - very crowded and messy, with limited parking spaces. Managed to get out of Padua centro only after one plus hour and extremely helpful road directions from this hotel owner who doesn't even speak english! Am eternally grateful to him! Viva Italia!

claire

If you want to make Verona your base, and travel elsewhere in day trips, you might consider Residence Verona House. It is in the old town, across the street from Castelvecchio...all about a four minute walk from Piazza Bra. It is not technically a hotel, so you generally don't find it listed. We got a double room with bath included, but you also can get suites and apartments. ALL have kitchen facilities (even our double room). In the opera season, (July and August), this is an expensive option. But, in the rest of the year, it is much less expensive. We loved it. Our room had recently been completely redone & also was spotless. They have a website...
www.residenceveronahouse.com
This site also links you to interesting info about Verona. Have fun!

Claudia

Thank you for the input. I will check into the ones you have mentioned. In the meantime, the travel agent confirmed a room at Hotel Italia. We can always change to a better location. Have any of you stayed at the Hotel Italia?

Thanks again!

stevek

Claudia, When will you be traveling? I have a reservation for Hotel Italia on July 4. If you are back home before then I would like to here about the Hotel Italia.
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uhoh_busted

Hi - we stayed for two nights in Hotel Italia in 2001. There was a convenient parking garage next door, but we never took the car out until we left (there was a lot to see in Verona). The hotel is about 3 blocks across the river from the old center city, but was quite clean and comfortable. It seemed to be more of a "business" hotel than for tourists. They had a very good breakfast (which was included) in a nice breakfast room. We really enjoyed walking to the "centro" and across the bridge over the Alto Adage (sp?) river. Verona is a terrific town. Before we went to Italy, we'd read Tim Parks' books (Italian Neighbors, Italian Education), and he lives outside of Verona, so his nonfiction stuff is very much about the area. So was one of his novels we read. I've got a bunch of pictures from Verona on my Virtual Tourist website Italy pages you might want to see. (www.virtualtourist.com/radiomom) I got the impression that Verona is a good place for international conventions. The hotels were really filled up when we were there. It also seemed that the cool ones in the centro were rather expensive. We truly enjoyed Verona. There were good restaurants, good shopping, lots of people living in and around the centro. The Castelvecchio is a nice museum, there are some wonderful churches, and the arena is really astounding. I really felt like it was someplace I could live, though. And maybe part of that came from staying across the river, and the lovely residential neighborhood that we'd walk through going to and from our hotel.