Drive Bolzano to La Spezia

There are several freeway service areas where you can have lunch without even exiting the freeway. As far as the rest is concerned, it is mostly a boring drive on the largest plain in Italy, the Po Valley.

I suggest you take the following sequence of freeways regardless of what the navigator might suggest:

A22 toward Verona
A4 toward Brescia-Milano
A21 toward Cremona-Piacenza
A21-Dir. toward Fiorenzuola D’Arda
A1 toward Bologna
A15 toward La Spezia

There are interesting locations more or less along the way, all of which require a slight detour, such as Lake Garda, Verona, Parma, however since you are probably traveling with luggage I don’t recommend stopping along the way and leave your luggage unattended in the car.

I rarely disagree with Roberto, but in this case I would drive the easier Bolzano-Verona-Modena- Parma- La Spezia that looks to me a little shorter. The shortest itinerary would involve cutting off the freeway between Mantova and Parma, not recommended.

Several times, on different itineraries, I got off freeway at Parma, parked my car in the underground Toschi park and had lunch in the center, my favourite restaurant being Rigoletto near the opera house. It would not be an overly long layover (say, 2 hours) and would get you a glimpse of the city. But I usually do not have much luggage when I stop.

lachera’s route works too. A22>A1>A15. In both instances you are always on freeways.
Only 5 or 6 km (3 miles) longer, therefore about the same time in terms of time compared to the route I gave above.
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Just wanted to make sure you don’t listen to the navigator if it suggests you to get off the freeway system to take regular Strade Statali (2 lanes) to save some miles. Sometimes the navigator does that, and then you get stuck behind some slow truck that it is too dangerous to pass on a two lane highway.

Stick to the toll freeways.