Help Needed with Mother-Daughter Northern Italy Adventure!

When I'm traveling the Alps, I'm usually visiting Tirol and the Austrian Alps. It's the same mountains. Travel there is much easier than Switzerland and less expensive too.

You could take a train up thru the Brenner Pass stopping at Innsbruck. The 10,000 foot mountains are 1-2 miles apart, and the vistas are absolutely incredible. It's also easy to catch a train up to Salzburg and even 2 hours west to Munich--great European cities.

We usually drive when in Europe, and we just love to get up on the mountainside and go from village to village above Innsbruck.

It's been a while since we traveled the area I truly love. I went to college in Innsbruck 54 years ago.

Keep in mind that to avoid the summer heat, you need to stay at altitude. Down at/near sea level, it can be hot even though mountains are in view. Not all lodgings located in the valleys are air conditioned (that's definitely the case in Bolzano and Bressanone), so you need to be careful about that. Lodging in the Italian Dolomites is quite costly in the summer; I don't know about the situation in the neighboring countries. You can get around by train (in some of the valleys) and buses, but if you stay at altitude, you'll have to take a bus down to the nearest train station for some of your day-trips. That can limit the ground covered. We have at least a few people on the forum who've rented cars for travel around the Dolomites. You might be able to find some trip reports via the Search function. Use the filter to select the Forum and posts within, say, 2 years.

I've only been to Lake Como once, this year for four nights beginning on August 30. Bellagio was definitely full of visitors the day I went there, but there were few other visitors in evidence in tiny Varenna, which I found odd; it may have been the time of day. The ferries were busy, so people were clearly moving around, but I walked the southern section of the Lake Como Greenway late one afternoon, and I saw no other tourists at all. Villa Carlotta and Villa Balbianello were both busy, but not unpleasantly so. Lake Como is in no way "mobbed" in the same way Venice, Florence and Rome are.

The issue with Lake Como, frankly. is availability and cost of lodging in convenient locations--the mid-lake towns served by frequent ferries. This forum seems to prefer Varenna; Bellagio is larger and also popular but is the town that seems to attract the most people traveling to the lake from places like Como and Lugano. Menaggio has somewhat less of the cute, higgledy-piggledy old-town look to it, but it is attractive and has a good number of lodging options. I was unable to find something suitable in any of those towns despite starting my planning very early in the calendar year; that's why I ended up in Tremezzo, which was OK but not particularly charming and not quite as convenient for ferry trips. The mid-lake area has relatively frequent ferry service. In addition, there's a train line running up the east side of the lake (stopping in Varenna), and there are buses on both sides of the lake as well as buses to Bellagio. I found it easy enough to get around the mid-lake area by public transportation.

There are other lakes, Maggiore and Garda being the most often mentioned of those on the Italian side of the border, but I haven't been to either of them recently enough to comment on how touristy they are these days compared to Como.

We stayed in Ortesei this past fall and loved it. If you visit the region take a look at the guided hikes and other activities thru Val Gardena Active. Most hotels in the area belong and so it's free for their guests (lift tix not included though). Ortesei and other villages are easily reached by bus from Bolzano, which in turn is easily reached by train. The bus network in the Dolomites is pretty extensive; be sure to download the app for timetables. We also used the book "Walking in Italy's Val Gardena" by forum contributor Laurel Barton.

If you have only 10 days then I think you need to limit the number of places you visit or else much of your trip will be spent riding transit. We went to Ortesei from Salzburg and when all was said and done it took much of the day.

We much prefer Lago di Garda to Como. It is beautiful, especially at the north end of the lake. The small town of Malcescine, with a cobbled oldtown area and a ruined castle, plus a cablecar up to the summit of Monte Baldo, is our favorite.

https://www.visitmalcesine.com/en

You can easily reach Malcescine from the Dolomites by train from Bolzano to Rovereto or Verona, and private transfer from there to your hotel (which can arranged this for you). Or you can travel by ferry, perhaps on your way to your departure airport.

And there are of course many other villages and towns along the lake that people can suggest.

For your Dolomites visit, if you would like to stay up on Alpe di Siusi, there are lovely hotels up there with swimming pools for your relaxation time. Expensive, but how often are you going to do this? These two are at the far end of the Alpe:

https://www.hotelsantner.com/en/

https://www.saltria.com/en/pool-whirlpool.asp

If a pool is not important, I can highly recommend this small family-run hotel near the small commercial area of Compatsch:

https://www.chaletdolomites.com/en/

Note that at any hotel up on the Alpe, it is recommended to take half-board at the hotel (breakfast and dinner) as there are few if any other options for dinner (depending on which area is your home). The food on offer is generally excellent. But the Alpe is not for everyone. This area is remote and transport options after 6 pm are non-existent. It is a unique place, and while we love staying up there (and will be next summer), I would not want to be up there more than 3 nights. If you want something down in Val Gardena, with more shops, restaurants, night life, etc., then consider staying in Ortesei or another village in the valley.

We like Santa Cristina, the small village just up the valley from Ortesei, with lifts going up to Alpe di Siusi on one side, and to the Puez group on the other side. There is a nice family-owned hotel with a pool there that we enjoyed in 2022:

https://www.hotel-interski.com/en/information/index/1-0.html

Again, if a pool if not important for your relaxation time, you might prefer to stay in Ortesei which has more shops and restaurants. And still has lifts up to both sides from the valley, including he famous Seceda lift.

Hi Elizabeth,

Besides comments about locations, I will add my trip report from our Mother/Daughter trip to Italy in 2022 - just for some of the thought processes that went into it. Have a wonderful time making special memories together!

Lake Como is very nice! My favorite is staying over at Lake Maggiore at Stresa. (I will be there for the fourth time next year.). I’m staying at the Hotel Regina & out at the Boutique Hotel Elvezia on tiny Isola Bella while I am there.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/mother-adult-daughter-italy-trip-aug-sept-2022