14 Day trip to Italy Begin & end Venice-Need Help with Itinerary

My advice is to buy the Cadogan Guide, "Northeast Italy." It's extremely comprehensive. It gives information to suit all kinds of interests, and the lodging and restaurant recommendations are very reliable. That being said, Padova, Verona, Vicenza, Bolzano and the Dolomites, Ravenna . . . It's a fabulous region. You won't run out of things to do. Great food, too, especially seafood.

We would advise that you not spend much time, if any, in Milan. It is a commercial city with little to offer beyond the Duomo and the Last Supper. Spend that time in places near Venice, like Verona and Vicenza and its environs. You will also love Lake Como and Lake Garda. The latter is easily reached directly by train from Venice, while Como necessitates a trip to Milan and a transfer onto the train going to Como

Hey, Linda. I wouldn't give up on getting beyond northern Italy on this trip! Clearly, you don't want to have too much ground travel or back-tracking to enjoy the excursion (a bit of challenge flying in and out of the same airport), but 14 days is a good chuck of time. Here's one possible plan:

-Fly to Venice; 3 nights Venice
-Train to Florence (about 3 hours); 3 nights Florence
-Bus to Siena (about 1 hour); 2 nights Siena
-Return bus to Florence (1 hour); train to Cinque Terre
-3 nights Cinque Terre (we like Monterosso al Mare as our home base)
-Train to Milan (about 3.5 hours)
-2 nights Milan
-Train to Venice (about 3 hours)
-1 final night in Venice, near transport access to airport
-Fly home from Venice

I've got some pretty specific things about these destinations on my travel blog at http://www.moltogentileitalia.blogspot.com. Good luck!

Just wanted to drop a friendly "But wait a minute..." on Milano--it's a great town! Sure, it's big city Italy without the ancient sites like Rome, and it's the commercial-financial capital, BUT it's also alive with color and energy and great food and art and music. Now we are from a big ciy, so maybe we lean that way a little, but as much as we like Cinque Terre and picturesque Italy, the Italians are largely an urban people. If you want to really get to know Italy, you can't skip Milan. Would be like visiting the US many times and avoiding New York City! Just my two cents.

With 14 days you can spend time in both Northern Italy and Tuscany. You'll really need to do some research and figuer out what is important to you. I'll suggest something that is totally against what most people will say on this board. Cinque terra is beautiful, but skip it. It seems to be swamped with too many tourists. Some of my favorite cities/places have been Venice, Florence (I would go to Florence just to eat), Bolzano, Sirmione on Lake Garda and Bassano Del Grappa. Hope you have a great trip.

As you can see, it's kind of difficult for us to tell you what you want to do. ;-)

Here's what we did on a similar length trip a couple of years ago.

Flew into Venice, stayed seven nights in Venice, two nights in the Dolomites and three nights at an agriturismo just south of Castelfranco Veneto. From there we went did a daytrip to Vicenza and a daytrip to Asolo.

then flew back home from Venice. You'll notice we did not get out of the Veneto but we had a wonderful trip.

So find a couple of guidebooks about northern Italy and see what you might enjoy.

try to stay a bit longer in your destinations and resist the temptation to cram in lots of traveling to lots of spots.

I would avoid Milan and points far afield and take short visits to smaller cities such as Bologna, Verona, Parma and the Italian Alps using the trains as your mode of transportion. Or spend a couple of days going to Lake Como and Varenna. Easy and cheap. When you get ready to split back to Venice, just hope on the next train. Buy point to point tickets at the station or using a local travel agency...buy second class coach. Above all...enjoy youself and don't stress about schedules.

Linda, to further muddy the water, you could fly out of another city (say Rome or Milan) and avoid back-tracking. I realize that you probably already have your tickets and would have to pay a change fee to the airlines, but that cost could possibly be off-set by not having the cost/time factor of back-tracking to Venice. Just a thinkabout. As to Milan, my husband and I loved the 1 1/2 day we spent there - giving us another "flavor" in the overall tasting of Italy. I would love a chance to go back.

-Fly to Venice; 3 nights Venice- stay in Dorsoduro, not near piazza san marco

-Train to Florence (about 3 hours); 3 nights Florence

-Bus to Siena (about 1 hour); 2 nights Siena

-Return bus to Florence (1 hour); train to Cinque Terre -3 nights Cinque Terre (we like Monterosso al Mare as our home base)

-Train to Varenna (about 4 hours)

-2 nights Varenna

-Train to Venice (about 3 hours)

-1 final night in Venice, near transport access to airport

-Fly home from Venice