Hello all! First, thank you to everyone who is contributing here and making this kind of trip planning less daunting and confusing.
Quick background: our family of 5 (3 kids from 3 to 11 years old) live in a small city in central Africa and have traveled around a fair bit outside of living here (Australia, Mexico, all around the USA before moving here, etc.) and have no love of crowded tourist destinations, places to go just to take a picture and say you've been there, or anything of the sort. We're constantly busy and rarely have a moment to stop and appreciate what's around us, but those moments are the best and most precious ones. Our past travel experiences have taught us and less is more and slow is joyful, so we're planning to spend about 10 days in northern Italy in mid-March, flying in and out of Milan (unless we can get an inbound or outbound flight from Venice with no added cost).
What we're not interested in: anything crowded, big cities for more than the time it takes to see a few big things and get some good food (maybe a day to try to find a nice bag for my wife and a couple of nice, used coats for us...sub-saharan Africa isn't known for its supply of warm clothing), and as little travel over 1.5-2 hours as possible apart from moves to a different region or to Milan for our outbound flight.
What (we think) we'd enjoy most: getting to know the culture of the Trentino Alto Adige area (immersing in culture has been immensely more memorable for us than destinations), small towns that would be a good home base for a few day trips to historical or cultural sights, the best food we can get, and (due to having 7-9 people with some unavoidable luggage) train or bus routes that max out around 2-2.5 hours from our "home base" somewhere in that area. Anything involving horses or livestock is a huge bonus, all of us love animals and agrarian life. Proximity to some sort of trails would be great for when everyone else is sleepy and I get stir crazy (really doesn't have to be much, we will not have hiking gear and I'd be going out before breakfast or after lunch, nothing serious).
Must-haves:
- At least one castle tour
- Anything that will blow our kids' minds
- No more than 3 moves from base-to-base (2 would be best, apart from a possible 1-2 nights in Milan for convenience and pre-flight rest)
- Beautiful views
- Either the ability to get around with a van or bus/train (train is best, but bus is fine); side note, driving in our home town here would terrify most westerners, so I'm not afraid of having to be a little brave with the driving and parking, just as long as it's reasonably possible
- Small town/village (possibly in one of the valleys???) that has some food options in walking distance from a house/lodge/farm stay...if you have a town/region to recommend, I'll happily spend way too many hours researching routes and accommodation options.
Now the questions (and yours are, of course, very much encouraged in response to all of this!):
1. Is this possible, or are the expectations too high (small town, walking distance to food, and driving/bus/train options to Trento)?
2. What will the weather be like around Trento in March?
3. Are we going to be disappointed that we didn't spend a few days in Florence/Venice/Milan? Keep in mind that we will be flying this same route at least once a year and can do a trip like this every time, which we plan to do for Rome, Florence, Venice, and maybe one other city next time around. This one is just meant to be a relaxing intro to Italy, and to see if our hearts get stolen away as they did in a quiet town here, which has taken away our desire to see any of the touristy safari destinations close to us.
4. We'd like to take the Bernina Express line, though on a local train, but that can be a brief stop at the beginning or end of the trip. Any small towns/villages we should stop and spend the night at there in order to enjoy the culture of that area for a day?