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Bologna+Venice for Easter/Liberation-Day week? Or go South?

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My family (wife and I in our 40s and 14 year old daughter) are planning an Italy trip for Sat April 19 to Sunday April 27 2025 (8 nights). I am aware that Sunday/Monday the 20th/21st and Friday the 25th are all national holidays in Italy. Unfortunately our dates are fixed by school vacation (wife is a teacher).

We have flexibility to mix/match flights in and out of any of Milan, Venice, Rome, or Naples. My wife and I have previously visited Rome, Tuscany, Umbria, and the Amalfi-Coast. Our daughter has never been to Italy.

What do we most enjoy in our travels:

  • Food (our daughter is mildly obsessed with pasta and I'm a pizza fanatic but we generally love a wide variety of Italian food)
  • Nove lexperiences and feeling like we've gotten a peak at a different way of life
  • Natural and man-made/architectural beauty (and where the two meet). Not art per se though.
  • History (ancient, medieval, renaissance...)
  • A tiny bit of shopping at a couple well-curated small/independent boutiques
  • Good walks that bring more than one of the above together

My most straightforward itinerary right now is to spend 4 nights each in Venice and Bologna (with side-trips from Bologna in Emilia-Romagna). My biggest concern about this is the impact of the religious/national holidays and especially crowds in Venice. I've read in other threads that Venice can get unpleasant for the weekend of Easter with packed vaporetti making it hard to get around.

Questions:
1. Would doing Bologna/ER first (incl Easter weekend) and Venice second reduce the Venice crowding concerns from the Easter long weekend? Or does Liberation Day being on the following Friday undermine that strategy (both weekends are long weekends for Italians)?
2. If crowding in Venice is going to be bad through the whole week, should we consider an alternate itinerary starting and ending in Naples? Maybe something like Naples and surroundings (Herculaneum->Pompei) to Basilicata (Castelmezzano...Matera...) and back out through Naples? Puglia or Calabria could also be options but might be too far given the limited time?

Sorry that was a lot. Thank you in advance for reading through it!

Eric

Posted by
711 posts

I don't think you will see a reduction in crowds in Venice. Many people will also take off April 24th since it is a Thursday to "bridge" the holiday (I am speaking about Italians). I would expect lots of people and crowds in Venice.

Posted by
5 posts

Thanks Linda. I thought that might be the case.

Given the timing, do you think it makes sense to consider alternatives to Venice? No doubt we will see crowds everywhere that Italians generally visit on their holidays. But wondering if Venice will be one of the worst choices given its unique attributes?

Posted by
569 posts

That one will become a "long bridge", where a lot of Italians will do a 9 days of travel spending only 3 days of working holidays.
Means that you could expect that everywhere will be crowded with tourists! Even southern Italy, Matera, Naples, Sorrento/Amalfi area.
My suggestion is to plan your trip without being too worried. You three are young and Venice is small, so if sometimes the queue for a boat is too long you can simply walk: is so nice get "lost" in the streets not packed by tourists in Venice and wander around! The same for Bologna, in the narrow Medieval streets south of the square.

Posted by
319 posts

Here is a different idea that I think has what you’re looking for, is reasonably compact and should have relatively modest tourist crowds compared to places like Venice, and where you haven’t been before. Fly in and out of Milan. Visit one of the beautiful lakes, either Varenna on Lake Como (Rick’s favorite, and it is lovely), or Stresa not far from Milan’s airport. These are of course touristed but Easter week is early in the season. Spend a couple days in Turin — full disclosure, I haven’t been there but I want to for the kind of reasons you describe. Then a day or two back in Milan itself. A nice balance of urban and natural beauty . I suppose a downside of this is that your daughter won’t be able to tell her friends she’s seeing any of the most world famous places they all have heard of such as Trevi fountain, tower of Pisa, Venice etc., but for food and boutiques I don’t think you could do much better! And she has the rest of her life to return to Italy and see those places during a less hectic time.

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