I hate to clog up the site with another post about the CV but we are scheduled to leave Saturday

Cancel the northern part and fly to Milan a day before your flight back to USA.
Or change your flight (this is most expensive) to leave from Rome.

Vick,

Given the fact that your trip is taking place in the very near future, my suggestion would be to go ahead with it. Although the travel company has offered a refund on a portion of the trip, cancelling now could come with significant financial penalties for other parts of the trip.

You'll have private accommodations in Rome, so won't be exposed to other guests in a hotel. AFAIK, there aren't too many cases of COVID-19 in Rome, so you shouldn't have any issues there. For your stops in northern Italy, I'd probably be a bit more concerned with hygiene and hand washing, but would just tour normally. You may find some restrictions in Milan in terms of museum closings, Duomo closed, etc. but you're only there for two nights (one full day) so your exposure will be limited.

As you'll be using a rental car, be sure you have the compulsory International Driver's Permit, which is used in conjunction with your home D.L. Also be very careful to avoid the ZTL (limited traffic) zones which exist in many Italian towns and cities. Hefty fines for each pass through one (DON'T drive in Florence!).

Check with your airline to see if they'll change your outward bound flight. Several are doing so with no penalty.

Agree with gerri. You do not want to go to Milan. See if the airline will fly you out of Rome or Florence and stay the extra nights there. Not sure how travelers returning from Milan are being treated on entry to the US

I would recommend not spending two nights in Milan. Duomo is closed as well as other museums. We just found out today that the Ac Milan Series A soccer match that we have tickets for on Sunday will closed to public (no spectators). If you can fly out of Rome instead, might be a better option.

It is a morphing situation, but I agree with Geri and Bob (and I edit to add Karen)........try to change tickets so as to not have to fly out of Milan. My two cents worth two cents. I personally would also pay the $200 or $300 airline reticketing fee (if necessary) to avoid flying out of Milan, but I tend to be cautious.

Arrival is into rome. Departure is from Milan.

I am being told it would be thousands apiece to depart from florence instead of Milan

I am. Being told it would be about $1,400 to depart out of Rome.

I can cancel the ground portion of my trip but the flights are non-cancelable. So even though I got a hell of a deal on this whole thing I was still only get about 1/3 back

Keep nagging the airline(s). The fluidity of the situation is underlined by this news - just out (Google translated): "British Airways has decided to cancel 22 flights to Milan, scheduled between today and 11 March, due to the lack of reservations related to the spread of the international alarm on coronavirus cases in Italy. Bloomberg reports, citing sources from the British flag carrier."

Our return flight is scheduled on British Airways from Milan. This is going to get ugly

This from British airways.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/incident/coronavirus/latest-information?dr=&dt=British%20Airways%20%7C%20Book%20Flights,%20Holidays,%20City%20Breaks%20%26%20Check%20In%20Online&scheme=&audience=travel&CUSTSEG=&GGLMember=&ban=%7C%7CP1M%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7CHOME%7C%7C%7C%7CL4%7C%7C%7C%7Canonymous-inspiration%7C%7C%7C&KMtag=c&KMver=1.0&clickpage=HOME

The person you talked to may not have current info. Call and ask for a supervisor.

More info...https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/delayed-or-cancelled-flights/rebook-and-refund-options

If they have cancelled your flight, then you can get reimbursed. So now you have the flight and hotels refundable.

Personally I am much more concerned about travel disruptions and quarantines than I am about the virus. Remember SARS? Remember Bird Flu? Remember Ebola? Zika, Measles.... . We have a trip planned in April, not a tour just a trip that we planned ourselves as we always do. Fly into Rome, spend a few days visiting friends on the Adriatic Coast, train to Milan, one night, then train to Paris and Amsterdam. We're going to wait a couple weeks to assess the situation and we may just fly to Paris from Rome bypassing Milan and northern Italy. But, who knows? May the travel disruptions and quarantines will spread to Rome and/or Paris byt hen. It's a day to day situation. If restrictions and quarantines spread we may cancel the entire trip. We have always purchased travel insurance and now that we might need it I find out it doesn't cover trip cancellations due to pandemics, crazy!

Vick,

One solution might be to stay at another location in the north, rather than right in Milan. For example, you could spend two nights either in Varenna (Lago di Como) or Stresa (Lago Maggiore). The latter is close enough to Malpensa that you could get to the airport easily (depending on what time your flight departs). If you have a very early flight, you could stay at the Malpensa Sheraton rather than stay in Milan, which would minimize your contacts with large crowds. You can walk directly from the hotels into the airport terminals.

If you visit Varenna, you could spend a leisurely day exploring towns in the mid-lake area and just enjoy "Il dolce far niente". If you visit Stresa, you could tour the scenic Borromeo Islands, take a cable car to Mt. Mottarone or perhaps even take a day trip on the scenic Cento Valli Railway to Locarno (CH), returning by boat in the early evening.

There's no "perfect" solution but that should minimize contact with people who might be carriers of the virus, and also avoid huge financial penalties by re-booking your flights.

Good luck!

What day is your flight out of Milan? If it is after the 11th, then BA hasn't made a decision yet as to what they are going to do. If no one is booking flights from Milan, they will cancel yours and have to rebook you from somewhere else without any penalty. They may not, however, refund your entire trip as you could still fly to Rome.

If you do go, and can change your departure airport, look south--Amalfi, Puglia, Sicily--lots of choices.

The problem is they bought a package including airfare from a travel company. It is that company they have to deal with, not British Airways.

Vick, you could drive north, stopping somewhere appealing for one night, then turn in the car at a Milan train station and take the train to Stresa to spend your last night. There is a bus from Stresa directly to MXP, taking around 30 minutes if I recall correctly.

Why go into Milan to turn the car in? Why not drive to the airport and turn it in there? There are many hotels that have shuttles to and from the airport that you could stay at the night before your flight.

My husband successfully landed at Malpensa this morning and FaceTimed me before getting on the train. He is headed to Florence first. He is in Italy for a wine certification course and I am hoping to join him on March 12th. Anyway, things were very normal. No masks, people at the airport cafe, etc. He was expecting something completely different from the way things are being reported here, although our friends on the ground there had told him otherwise.

We have reservations in Alba, outside of Trento and north of Trieste beginning on March 13th. Now that he is there, he is going to be following the news on the ground there and not the news we are getting here. If more places go on lockdown or things change, i will either cancel or we will head somewhere else.

It is hard to know what to do. There is a balance between your own personal comfort level and cancelling before losing a ton of money and just going ahead with things.

The situation in Rome as of today: https://anamericaninrome.com/wp/2020/02/rome-and-the-coronavirus/

Thank you for sharing that last article. That was very helpful to me. My wife is kind of in panic mode and wanting to cancel. my daughter is in medical school and wanting us to cancel. I just don't see enough reason to cancel at this point. I think we'll still try to fly home out of Milan but keep our trip to Rome and Tuscany and probably Cinque a Terre

Thanks for the link Carol F. That was a really good report from someone who is in Rome now. We are scheduled for the Sicily tour in early May and then the Best of Southern Italy directly after. We are not planning to cancel our tours. We are, however, being watchful of the situation in Rome and parts south.

Seeing many more accounts of people from and in Italy saying the media and politicians are overblowing, politicizing (shocker, i know) and scaring people unnecessarily. Which in turn causes people to overreact and scare each other

We're not going to change anything except for instead of hanging out in Milan the night before flying home we will probably stay closer to florence or cinque Terre.

We are in Same position arriving Rome on March 2nd. We are rearranging our trip to stay in the south/ potentially more days in Rome. If the situation gets escalated after we leave Atlanta I have a contingency plan to get out of the airport in London and fully improvise a revised 2 week trip. Hoping to pull off our Italian vacation though as this is what we’ve been planning together for well over a year.

We are in Same position arriving Rome on March 2nd. We are rearranging our trip to stay in the south/ potentially more days in Rome. If the situation gets escalated after we leave Atlanta I have a contingency plan to get out of the airport in London and fully improvise a revised 2 week trip

Where is your return flight out of?