Paris To Lake Como

What airline and which airport are you leaving from? Generally speaking, be at the airport 90 minutes before departure time from a flight to Milan.

I am not really sure right now. Just working on the agenda and wanted to add the time in. Some flights leave from BVA which is 1:30 minutes from Paris so, not worth the extra. It is fun planning but, lots of details!
Thanks for you help!

RyanAir's one flight from Beauvais to Bergamo would not normally be our first choice, as you figured. But if you go that way, you can take bus #1 to Bergamo train station and then train takes 1h 15m to Varenna on Lake Como, with a connection at Lecco. See train schedules at www.trenitalia.com.

If you fly from Orly or Charles de Gaulle to Malpensa or Linate, then you'll go into the city to catch a train at Milano Centrale station. I think of these 4 airports as "one hour from the city" but Orly and Linate can be a bit quicker and EasyJet has one flight between both.

WOW! There are so many options! We have friends in Menaggio that we are visiting. Looking at driving, it takes us through Switzerland on the north which would be amazing. I am just looking at train/car options so, I don't have to pay the huge drop off fees.
So much fun exploring all the options.

If you are thinking of renting a car for the drive to Italy from Paris, I am not sure if you know and have factored into your consideration but there will be a pretty big drop-off fee if you rent the car in France and return it in Italy. Last time I looked the "out of country" drop-off fee was in the range of 600€ but the other day a friend of mine told me that he got a quote of around 800€. Usually (other than Avis), there is no one-way drop off fee for French car rentals but that is only the case for one-way rentals in which the car is returned to a location in France.

pam,

Regarding car rentals, note that each driver registered on the rental form will require the compulsory *International Driver's Permit" for both France and Italy (or a certified transalation of your home D.L. in both languages). These are used in conjunction with your home D.L. and are valid for one year. For travel in Switzerland, you'd also need to obtain the Highway Tax Vignette upon entering the country, or face hefty fines.

The easier options would be travel via train (about 8 hours to Milan and then local train to Varenna and Ferry to Menaggio) OR a budget flight (easyJet) from Paris CDG / ORY to Milan Linate or Malpensa (about a 1H:30M flight and then train and Ferry - Linate is closer to downtown Milan).