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Advice needed on first trip to Italy

I am planning a fairly aggressive first trip to Italy with my 2 daughters this May (20 & 24 yrs old). We arrive May 20 & fly home June 4. We love to hike, bike, & see the countryside. We are not art lovers or history buffs & prefer small towns over cities. I have created this tentative itinerary & would love some advice.
Arrive Milan 5/20- train to Monterosso (train will get us there no earlier than 7pm).
5/21- CT
5/22- CT
5/23- Train to Pisa/ Lucca. Spd nt Lucca
5/24 & 5/25- Car to hill towns. Stop in Volterra. End in Orvietto. Visit Civita Di Bagnoregio & mineral baths of Sarturnia.
5/26- drop car in Orvietto & take train to Rome or drive into Rome.
5/27 Tour Rome
5/28 Tour Rome
5/29 Train to Ravenna. spend nt
5/30 Train to Venice- or base out of Padua for Venice
5/31 Venice
6/1 Train to Bolzano- bus to Castelrotto
6/2 Hike Dolomites- Compatsch/Alp di Suisi
6/3 Train to Milan
6/4 Fly home
I know this is a lot of travel, but my girls think we are up to it.

Posted by
906 posts

Looks pretty good. Remember that 1 night in a town is not one day, it takes 2 nights to spend a full day.

When driving don't forget San Gimignano, it is on the way from Volterra. Siena is on the route as well. You have a lot planned for 5/24 and 5/25, you won't be able to do it all.

Do not drive in Rome unless you go to the airport to drop the car. My advice.

It is about 40 miles from Padua to Venice. You will eat up time traveling. Maybe stay in Venice, or cancel Venice and stay in Padua.

Posted by
1994 posts

If you don't like art or history, I see very little reason to go to Ravenna. It's one of my favorite places, but that's for the art. It's a modern town with some wonderful ancient historical, artistic monuments. Similarly, I would suggest staying in Venice not Padua – unless you're interested in the university at Padua or cheaper hotel rooms.

Posted by
15041 posts

My suggested itinerary below. I rearranged sequence so that you keep the car while visiting the Dolomites, since a car is a good thing to have in the mountains.
So here you would have this sequence of nights:
CINQUE TERRE
ROME
ORVIETO
(pick up car in Orvieto)
TUSCANY
DOLOMITES
(drop car in Venice)
VENICE
MILAN
You can add or subtract nights here and there to your preference. Personally I don't think that Ravenna needs to have a night there. Actually, since your itinerary is pretty aggressive as is, you need to trim down your destinations.

Here it is (in parentheses where you should spend the night).
5/20-Arrive MXP, train to CT. (Monterosso)
5/21- Visit CT (Monterosso)
5/22- Visit CT (Monterosso)
5/23: Transfer from Monterosso to Rome via train (ROME)
5/24 Visit Rome (ROME)
5/25-Visit Rome (ROME)
5/26- Train to Orvieto visit (ORVIETO)
5/27 Pick up car, stop by Civita, drive to Tuscany (TUSCANY location tbd)
5/28 Visit Tuscany (TUSCANY location tbd)
5/29 Visit Tuscany (TUSCANY location tbd)
5/30 Drive from Tuscany to Val Gardena (ORTISEI)
5/31 Visit/Hike Dolomites (ORTISEI)
6/1 Drive through Dolomites to Venice. Return car upon arrival in Venice. (VENICE)
6/2 Visit Venice. (VENICE)
6/3 Train from Venice to Milan (MILAN or MXP airport area)

Posted by
134 posts

I would trim this tour, it's far too much.

Milan
Monterosso + 5 terre
Lucca/Pisa
Versilia
Volterra
Grosseto
Orvietto
Gubbio
Roma
Firenze ( a very small town, very nice countryside around, nice shops)
Chianti wine tour
I would not cross over the whole Italy to visit the Dolimite, Venice and Ravenna. You could do all this another time.
Another nice thing would be to go to Salerno and visit Capri, Ischia, Amalfi.
Maybe also you could arrive directly in Rome or even Pisa, depending how your connections are, and the price. It is true however that there are sometimes problems with lugguage in Rome, not that they are lost but difficult to know where they send it. Do not hesitate to ask for help. Have a nice vacation. If you have never been in Italy do not drive in Romenor in Naples.

Posted by
16893 posts

I like Roberto's suggested route to limit the car travel, keep the rural stops closer together, and skip Ravenna.

Posted by
11247 posts

I like Roberto's suggestions but would also say to skip Venice if you only have one day/two nights. If you really love the outdoors, the Val Gardenia could take your extra time. Stay in the Dolomites in Ortisei and stay at least 3 nights so you can spend one day in the Alpe di Siusi and one in the Puez Odle, the other side of the valley. From Ortisei you can take the cableway at Mont Seuc, hike across the Alpe to Compatsch, have lunch, hike the "Witches Benches", then descend at Compatsch via cableway and take a bus the short trip back to Ortisei. As to the Puez Odle, you can take the lift at Seceda for an amazing alpine hike, or the funivia at Rasciesa for a less strenuous day. PM me if you need details on the area.

Posted by
993 posts

I would trim down some of the Tuscany stops... we did a similar whirlwind through the hilltowns when I was 28 -we had a car and we would visit one on the way to the next one, sleep, do it the next day... I honestly don't even remember where we went, or what we did. Ended up in Rome exhausted. And I came out of that trip hating Italy.

Last summer (now I am 42) we took the kids, slowed down, loved Rome, went to Lucca and spent 2 nights, ended in Venice and LOVED Italy! Then I thought back to that trip and wondered how much I would have loved it then if we had visited half those little towns but spent twice the time in them... it could be that I am older now and appreciated it more. But I do think if we had not had soooooo many little places to visit and instead really dove in and stayed a little longer in just a few (as we did this time in Lucca), I would have really enjoyed that first trip.

Posted by
993 posts

And just adding, with 14 days on the ground, I think I would do maybe only 5-6 places at the most. In 7 full days (8 nights) we did 3 nights Rome, 2 nights Lucca, 3 nights Venice and it was great. Would have loved another day in Rome, and could have enjoyed Venice one more day too.

Posted by
15041 posts

To avoid the exhaustion of your Tuscany roaming for 3 nights I recommend that you choose a central base and do your day trips from there, rather than changing hotels every night. In my previous comment, I indicated a Location To Be Determined for that portion of the trip.
I don't know which towns you'd like to visit, but the area in or near Colle Val D'Elsa/Monteriggioni is the most centrally located to visit everything of interest in Tuscany. It is basically at the cross-roads of the highways to Florence, to Siena and beyond (Montepulciano, Pienza, etc), to Volterra, to the Val D'Elsa (San Gimignano, Certaldo), and to Castellina (Chianti), so it would make a perfect base.
Lucca and Pisa are a bit more distant from there, but still reachable in less than 1.5 hours by car from Colle V.E.