Due to engagements in Germany in July, August is our month for Italy. We know it is hot! We'd like to stay in a small village connected to train lines. Please favor me with your suggestions. Our major pleasure would be to soak up the culture of the village and to take day trips to nearby villages. We are in our 80s and love Italy but want a mostly relaxing month. Grazie un mil.
Posted by
Boston
1805 posts
Look at Portogruaro in the Veneto to see if it would suit you. Nice place, we only visited for a short time but have kept it in mind since.
Posted by
11616 posts
We have enjoyed visits to Bassano del Grappa with it’s Alpine feel.
Posted by
Abruzzo Mountains
1089 posts
I was surprised and pleased to see Mike's recommendation of Portogruaro. We spend ten days there (ok a decade ago) and really enjoyed it. It is well-connected by regional train service and the train station is walking distance from the historic center. We spend some wonderful days staying put, and other days via train to Venice, Padova, Treviso, Verona. We didn't have a chance to go to Trieste, which is on my list. It's near the Adriatic and has some nearby beach towns if you like that scene (beach umbrellas and loungers for rent.)
Downsides are it is fairly far east, so you can't get to Milan or Bologna for day trips. And we were there in July and it was HOT, not just kinda hot. But we're Canadians, so judge your own heat tolerance, ours is low.
West or south of Turin is another great option. Avigliana to the west - has two small lakes, an amazing 1000-year-old monastery, some very nice restaurants and a nice village. Commuter train to Turin takes 20 minutes, or you can take the train west even deeper into the mountains. I loved it and it might be less hot in August as it's in the Alps. South of Turin are several great wine regions, Langhe or Roero. My favourite little village there is Neive. Transit connections are not very good there. You might try Bra instead, the town where the Slow Food Movement originated. It has a train station.
If you want to be dead center of northern Italy, there are some nice places in Lombardy. Bergamo and Brescia are Italy's Capital of Culture twin cities this year. I really enjoyed visits to each last year. Not small villages but very good transit connections around the region. And my personal favourite town in Lombardy is Monza, which has the largest city park in Europe at 700 hectares. It has a very pretty historic center. It's a busy town with a convenient train station. It is not a small village but I really like it.
Final tip - stay out of Emilia Romagna in August (Bologna, Parma, Modena, Ferrara.) It sits in the Po Valley and just plain steams in the summer from heat and humidity. Unless they are having a brutal drought like last year, in which case it will just be hot.
Posted by
OP
tucson, arizona, usa
67 posts
Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses. Now for my search!