3 weeks - Bologna, Lake Garda, Dolomites

That’s very short for Venice, especially since it’s jet lag days.

Since you mentioned churches, my favorite two churches so far in many years of travel are Chartres, France & Parma’s Cathedral. The frescos along the nave convey such warmth with their coloring and just so special! I also really love the blocked letters of Bible verses in many languages on some of the furniture.

Here’s the link for Verona’s Roman Arena. If you’re in town during one of the June opera’s, it’s a wonderful evening!
https://www.arena.it/arena/en/pages/schedule-arena-di-verona.html

For biking, check options through Veronality and similar for some fun options.

Have a great time!

Kathy,

We stayed at this location in Parma - Palazzo dalla Rosa Prati, and they offered us a wonderful private food tasting session.

And, we ate a lovely dinner one night at Ristorante La Forchetta, which is just around the corner from the hotel, Cathedral & Baptistry.

I really enjoyed my two nights in Ravenna. The mosaics are outstanding! The town is charming and full of bikes since it’s so flat. A good place to ride.

Agree that time in Venice is painfully short.

I enjoyed Padua a lot. It's a lively university town with a large historic area. It has several worthwhile sights, but the one most people focus on is the Scrovegni Chapel. You must book entry at least one day in advance; I don't know whether it typically sells out, but they simply do not sell same-day tickets.

I'd try to avoid the one-night stop in Bolzano. It's another place with a lovely historic center, but it's time-consuming to do the hotel-switch after just one night. Perhaps you can arrive fairly early in the day, find a safe place to park your car (and with everything already hidden in the trunk), see the Iceman and any other points of interest to you and move on to Ortisei.

"And, we ate a lovely dinner one night at Ristorante La Forchetta"

One of the finest restaurants in the area. The signature dish is the "Duchessa di Parma" on page 6 of the menu [available online]. In the little gelateria behind the Duomo, the nuns fashion cones in the shape of a rose.

A car is not efficient for cities connected by trains, seeing how city centers are off-limits due to limited traffic zones [ZTLs]. Read this about driving in Italy and restrictions involved; never leave anything of value in a vehicle when parked:

http://driventoit.blogspot.com/

Suggest you rent a car in Verona, head up to Orteisi, then across to Cortina d'Ampezzo. Four nights are not enough for this area. Route planning on www.viamichelin.com. Earlier in the trip you have too many stops, 2 nights yielding only a single day. I would head somewhere by train upon arrival at VCE, stay at Venice at the end. The exception would be staying by the airport for an early AM departing flight; Venice first.

Thank you for the great tips which I’ll try to build into our trip. I’ve struggled a lot with the first part of the trip and have considered going straight to Bologna or Ferrara after the flight. But Venice is also a great place to just wander to get over jet lag. This will be my 3rd visit to Venice which is why only the 2 nights and we get in early the first day. We have found on past trips we don’t seem to have too much issue with jet lag and always seem to be able to stay up till 11pm the first night (as long as we keep moving around) so we should get 1.5 days visit.

With the Bologna segment, we have 6 nights to play with and want to include San Marino, Ravenna and Parma. I realize they can all be day trips by train from Bologna as the hub (as well as bus from Rimini to San Marino). A car definitely doesn’t make sense in Bologna but was thinking staying over in Ravenna then get a car to San Marino to Parma would help. It would be nice to visit some of the local producers outside of town which is why I thought we could take our time driving from Parma to Lake Garda (or to Verona). I’m not too bothered by switching hotels (we’re used to doing that). I guess an option could be 4 nights Bologna with a day visit to Ravenna, and the day visit to San Marino. Then transfer to Parma for 2 nights. Any suggestions are appreciated of better ways to do this segment.

The last segment of Bolzano 1 night, 3 nights Ortesei, 3 nights Cortina – is it too many? Would others agree to not stay over in Bolzano and go right to Ortesei? If I eliminated that 1 night in Bolzano where would you add that extra night to in the schedule. I do like the idea of Padua on the last night, especially to see the Scrovegni Chapel.

Not a bad itinerary. I would make a few adjustments. Obviously up to you if you stay in Venice for a day or two. I've been five times but when I'm in the area, or flying in, I often add a day just cause I love it so much. On the other hand, sometimes it's not worth the trouble. You could go by train straight to Bologna or another option would be to stop in Padua for a a night or two. Lovely city with a slightly less touristy vibe than some. I would extend the Bologna time and do day trips by train to Ravenna and Parma. The less time you have the car the better and it's not needed for those. On the way to Parma you can stop in Modena - I actually like it more than Parma, but it's on the same train line and the trains are so frequent you can easily combine them in a day trip.

After that I would rent the car, you do need it for San Marino but I would suggest two nights - plan to arrive after 4 pm, enjoy it in the evening and early the next morning, then do a day trip to San Leo, arriving back after 4 again. The next morning leave by 10. That's what we did and it worked out perfectly, San Marino gets horribly crowded mid day but is quite lovely early and late and we loved San Leo as a day trip.

If you don't mind one night stays I'd include Verona en route to Lake Garda. Same technique as with San Marino - arrive mid-late afternoon and enjoy it with less crowds in the evening and early the next morning and get out of there by mid morning. You'd probably need to find a place outside of the center since you'll have the car, but the bus system is pretty good.

On Lake Garda the only thing I wanted to see that wasn't at the north of the lake was Sirmione but maybe if you over-nighted in Verona and didn't feel you needed to spend time there in the morning you could leave Verona early and stop in Sirmione for a couple hours before it gets too crowded and then head north. I stayed in Malcesine and loved it. I personally wouldn't bother with staying in two locations. You can take the boat around the northern section and if you really want to see something in the middle area you do have a car.

When we were in the Dolomites we actually based the whole time in Bolzano and loved it. I know this is not what most people want but it worked for us. We enjoyed having a small city to some back to after driving/hiking day trips and I found the villages in the Ortesei region kind of boring. Usually I love small villages but in this case they just seemed like ski towns to me (we were there in July).

You will probably find some useful information in this trip report - https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/a-month-in-northern-italy-mountains-lakes-and-castles-1072263/

I visited the various places you are going on multiple different trips so no one trip report covers them all but there are photos of all those places here: -https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/f739967755

And this report covers Bologna, Parma, Modena and Ferrera - https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/blog/2019/10/bologna-and-emilia-romagna-july-2019

Thank you so much for all the information. I’ve got a lot more research to do, but we will consider tge idea of staying overnight in San Marino. We don’t mind doing the odd 1 night stops. The trip reports are also extremely helpful.