Desperately need help in narrowing down our 15 day itinerary to Northern Italy. Flying in and out of Milan in June. We are making a counter clockwise route starting in Milan 1 night, CT 3 nights, Florence 2 nights, Venice 2 nights, Ortisei 4 nights, Lake Garda (town?) 2 nights, Milan 1 night before our return home. We love to hike and all outdoor activities plus scenery, quaint towns and just a little of art and history.
My question is the transportation between these points- since we are trying to see so much I want to minimize travel and try to be efficient about it. So, we are choosing Monteroso in CT (direct train from Milan and town offers more places to stay), then on to Florence and Venice by train- this route seems pretty straightforward.
From Venice we want to take a train to Bolzano and rent a car there to drive into the Dolomites- thinking of staying in Ortisei. Return car to Bolzano on our return and then train to Lake Garda. This is where it gets tricky- we would like to stay in the northern side of Lake Garda but train only goes as far as Ravereto and then buses that stop a dozen times to Malsecine- our preferred town. Should we just keep the car and drive to Malsecine- is it a hard drive and is this a good place to drop the car? or since it seems that the train does go to the south side -Perschiero del Garda and Desenzone - should we just stay there to minimize the complexity of trains, bus etc. It seems the north side is more scenic but have read this southern shore is also attractive.
Would love any suggestions to streamline our transportation and still enjoy the scenery we would love to see.
Thanks so much
Posted by
San Francisco
13 posts
From Venice, you would get into the actual Dolomites much more quickly (and see much more of them) by renting a car at Marco Polo airport and driving north to Cortina d'Ampezzo. Then you can stay 1-2 nights near there to hike the Tre Cime, or make your way through the various (gorgeous!) passes over to Ortisei and the Val Gardena/Alpe di Siusi. Traveling by train from Venice to Bolzano is going a long way around past the Dolomites (west) and back in (east) to Ortisei.
Then, I haven't driven it myself, but given what you say above, I'd also recommend keeping the rental car for the Lakes District and dropping it off in Milan/Malpensa. I did not find there was any one-way/drop-off fee (i.e., dropping off in a different location) when I rented through AutoEurope.
Posted by
Glostrup, Denmark
1407 posts
Remember that Lake Garda is criss-crossed by ferry routes. You can sail to every city, but it takes some planning.
Perhaps you are better off staying by the station and taking day trips.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Ok thank you!
Amy, we want to minimize the packing and unpacking in the Dolomites so prefer to stay in one place and then use the car to go over passes and take us to hikes. So do you think it is best if we stay in Cortina D'Ampezzo? Are we closer to hikes there vs. Ortisei?
I could also change the route and travel Florence- Lake garda (probably Perscheiro del Garda due to train access- Bolzano/ rent car to Ortisei or Cortina d"ampezzo- drive to Venice drop car off stay 3 nts and then train back to Milan. Worried about driving into a crowded city like Venice airport though (never driven in Italy)
L.P.- I agree that we could use ferries to see other places and best to stay on train route- we only have 2 nights and don't want to spend too much time trying to get from point A to B
Again I appreciate your thoughts on this travel