Hello, my family and I are in the very early stages of planning a two week trip to Europe this July (approx. 07/10-07/25). We're celebrating my husband's and my 25th anniversary, one child's HS graduation, and our other child's 21st birthday. We're trying to accommodate everyone's interests--hence, spending one week in Northern Italy and one in Provence. We plan to fly into Milan and most likely out of Nice. We could use some help maximizing our time across what are admittedly very broad geographic areas.
In Italy, we'd like to find a couple of "home bases" from which we can explore. My husband and I've been to Italy before and would prefer to avoid the major cities like Venice and Florence, given that we'll be there in July. We're most interested in the Lakes Region and small towns in and around Lombardy but haven't settled on specifics yet. We would love suggestions for where to base ourselves. We like beautiful scenery, great food, hiking, antiquities, museums . . . actually, there isn't much we don't like! But we do prefer a slower pace. We rented a car for a week in Tuscany many years ago and would be willing to do so again if that's the best way to see this area.
From Italy, we'll make our way to Provence. We may take a low cost flight from Bergamo to Marseille on RyanAir to save time (although their customer service record gives me pause!). If anyone has a better suggestion for making that trek from Northern Italy to Provence, please share. We'll probably stay in St. Remy de Provence and/or a town in the Luberon.
Thank you for any and all ideas and advice you can share!