Help With 2 Week Italy Itinerary!

Given your stated goals/interests it looks fine. Knowing the time of year of the trip might affect the forum members comments about the locales

I would spend the night before your flight from Milan in Milan; if a really early flight at one of the hotels near the airport, many of which provide shuttle service.

I'm not super interested in visiting museums (I know, I'm so terribly
uncultured)

Never apologize for your interests! 🙂

Just updated, thanks Joe!

And thank you, Dave :D

I think it looks great! Just want to echo - there's no need to apologize for your interests, since this is YOUR vacation! :)

My only potential advice would maybe be to cut out CT and add those nights elsewhere (Milan, the Dolomites, or Lake Como). It's kind of the outlier from a geography perspective, and depending on where you're coming from in Tuscany, could take more time to get to than it's actually worth. I like CT, but it can be VERY crowded during peak season. I haven't been in 5+ years, so that might have changed with recent travel trends, though.

I recently watched a few vlogs on the Dolomites ("Adventures of A+K: Hiking the Dolomites" and "Exploring Seceda") and they definitely made me add the Dolomites to our next Italy trip itinerary! They also have a few videos on Rome.

Have fun!

Agree with taking out CT- it is a bit of an outlier when you want to be in Dolomites next.
Maybe consider a few nights in Bologna instead, supposed to be great for foodies and "on the way" to Dolomites.

You will need to be in Milan or near airport the night before your departure flight, so that is one night taken from another location-
I count 16 nights, you will need 17 without dropping a night somewhere.

Where in Tuscany will you stay?
Will you be traveling by train or will you rent a car for Tuscany portion?

Thanks, Erin & Christine for the tips! I’ll look into dropping CT.

In regards to being in Milan for our flight, we were thinking of sleeping in Lake Como/nearby the night before, and taking the train into Milan in the morning. Is that too stressful? I read online it’s rather quick, but again — I have no idea.

We also were hoping to avoid renting a car — not sure how easy it is to travel to these places via train only.

Also, not sure about where we are staying in Tuscany yet. Any recommendations?

From Varenna ( for example) it’s about an hour to Milano Centrale then about another hour+ to MXP
That would be way too far/stressful for me

Depends what time your flight is- most direct to US leave by 11 so you’d have to be at the airport by 8 am
If it’s not direct then you’ll likely be departing a whole lot earlier

Be sure to allow time on day before departure to get your COVID test for re-entry to US

Tuscany options without a car are Florence, Siena and Lucca ( although a bit too far west and north)

From those locations you can train or bus to several small towns in the countryside
Otherwise a car is a must

Wow thank you Christine! That is beyond helpful. Obviously we hadn’t looked up specific timing yet, but we will definitely sleep in Milan the night before then.

For Tuscany, we were hoping to stay in an agriturismo, but hadn’t looked into specifically where yet. We’ll look into renting a car just for there, then…I heard driving can be an expensive nightmare in Italy so was hoping to avoid!

There’s lots of discussion and info here on forums about renting car and driving in Tuscany
If you want to stay at an agriturismo you will definitely need a car

Do some searches, read up on both driving and agriturismos then return with your questions
Both rental cars/ driving and agriturismos have their pros and cons

I’m just going to throw this out there for consideration
You might consider staying on Lake Maggiore, Stresa rather than Como
Have not been there yet but will visit in Sept.
You can get to MXP easily from Stresa on your departure am—- that’s what we plan to do