Italy for 2 months

Arezzo, Orvieto and Lucca come to mind. Maybe Puglia or the Piedmont? You will be spoiled for choice.

I would jump at the chance to spend 2 or 3 weeks in Venice and explore the Veneto, then perhaps Florence with forays into the Tuscan countryside. I suggest Florence as there is so much to do there and good connections. Yet it is a manageable size. Finally, I would look at Umbria, perhaps Assisi or Perugia as a base with many day trip possibilities.

Alternatively regarding Venice and the Veneto, perhaps base in Verona or Padova.

Lucca in Tuscany and Vicenza in the Veneto. 🇮🇹

Florence has the best transportation connections to other places and I would love to spend a whole month there. I also loved Lucca, it's smaller, more intimate feeling, but plenty going on to keep you occupied. It just isn't the transportation hub that Florence is, but if you are willing to rent a car when needed I think it would be good place. I could live for a few weeks in any of the Tuscan towns that I've visited - Volterra, Arezzo, Cortona, Prato, Pistoia, especially if you're willing to rent a car because they also are not that well connected with other towns, in some cases there are buses where the trains don't go but their schedules are not always convenient.

I don't get bored in a town that easy so I could spend 2-4 weeks in just about any place. I would love to spend a few weeks in Venice to explore it thoroughly and to do several day trips to nearby places.

I'd suggest somewhere in the lake region but I'm not sure March-April would be the best month there but, then again, I've not been there in early Spring so maybe someone else would know if that's a good time to go there.

I think if I looked at the weather stats I wouldn't choose northern Italy at that time of year, but your opinion may differ on that score.

I'd prefer Padua to Vincenza in the north, because Vicenza felt so much smaller, and a month is a long time. However, Padua is a major university town, and that might not be what you want. But there are lots of very good day-trip possibilities from Padua, including Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Ferrara and Ravenna, and Padua has a large, walkable historic area.

I took two weeks of language lessons in Orvieto in 2015. For a small town it has rather a lot of sights, and I was fine with staying there for about 2-1/2 weeks. However, it's not terribly convenient for side-trips by public transportation, in that most possible destinations took too long to reach on days when I had class.

I have a couple of suggestions about scheduling your classes:

• I found morning classes worked better than afternoon classes if I wanted to spend some of my free time on class days outside my base town. It made quite a difference during a stint in Nice, where there were a lot more nearby possible destinations than in Orvieto.

• It seems a standard policy of language schools to charge a full week's fee even if there's a holiday on which you have no classes. Take a careful look at the calendar to be sure you won't be paying for more holidays than you consider acceptable.

We spent 5 weeks in Florence and could easily have stayed longer. We'd already been there for a week on an earlier trip, too. My husband took cooking classes and language classes and I took history of art classes. Took only two day trips, but it would have been easy to do more. We stayed in a totally non-touristy part of town that is within where the medieval walls used to be, so just 15 minutes walk to the Duomo. But five minutes walk in the other direction to a supermarket.

On our most recent trip, to various places in the Veneto, we decided that we would love to live in Padua for a month or more ---- this was after staying there for nine nights. We did several day trips by train and also could park our car for free about a 10 minute walk from our apartment. Great food market.

For some place in the south, I'd pick Lecce in Puglia --- lots to do in the town and great food. We were last there in late March and the weather was lovely. Puglia is way too hot for me May to October!

Florence is a great place to use as a base. It is not a huge city like Rome or Milan.

Sienna is another option.

Lucca if you have done Sienna and Florence.

To cover Umbria, consider Perugia or Assisi.

For the Naples area, consider Sorrento.

My three choices for bases would be

Padua from where you could easily do day trips to Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, Ferrara and lots of other places. It's only a half hour from Venice so you could go early some days, stay late others to avoid the mid day 'day trippers'. I was there in March a few years ago and it was much less crowded than later in the season when there are more cruise ships which is where the huge crowds come from.

Siena from where you could easily day trip to Florence by bus, and all over Tuscan by car to visit the smaller hill towns. Siena itself is actually a Tuscan hill town but bigger than most so plenty to do there and in the evenings, etc. Could easily spend a few weeks there.

Sorrento - day trips all over the Amalfi Coast, Capri, Ischia, Naples, etc. Could even do a side trip to places further away, but for those you might want an overnight or two (like Matera).

Putting them in this order would optimize the chance for good weather in Sorrento where you need it most. If you got some rain in the Veneto there are so many museums, churches and other indoor things that you could do to fill up a few lousy weather days.

In France I'd do two weeks each in Nice (day trips on the coast by train/bus) and in the hill towns inland from there I'd rent a car for a while - and in Provence, probably pick St Remy or somewhere like that.

Remember that to take advantage of all that Florence has to offer you don't have to stay in central Florence. With the car you could stay in the surrounding area, for example in Grassina which is in the Bagno a Ripoli area. Friends who live in Grassina love it. It's not too big or too small, has nice shops, is relatively close to central Florence (about 11km, so convenient for classes) and has easy access to the Chianti area and to the autostada for day trips. Something along those lines might work well for you.

Ciao! I am envious of your planned 2 month trip…dreams! You both sound very much like us where we want to try to live as locals when we travel.

I am going to suggest my favorite Tuscan town, Montepulciano. The town is large enough that there is plenty going on, great restaurants, shopping, festivals, etc. It is also small enough that it is very easy to get around and not overrun by tourist. It has it’s rustic and natural feel.

In Montepulciano is a language school called Il Sasso. We took a class there last year and it was fantastic! It is a wonderful school that will have you speaking Italian in no time. The teachers are so kind - I can’t say enough about the place. Your only regret will be not taking a longer course!

If you need any suggestions on places to stay or restaurants, just let me know. We have plenty to share.
Have a great time!

If you are considering a small town (like Montepulciano), I suggest exploring access to nearby places you might want to day-trip to before committing. The best I can tell (I have not visited Montepulciano), there is no train station in town, so for trips by rail you'd first have to take a bus to Montepulciano Stazione, which is several miles to the east. I point this out since you indicated in your original post that you don't plan to rent a car for the entire period of your stay, only "when needed", and I doubt that you would anticipate needing a car for a local day-trip. It looks to me as if there would be few places practical as day-trips without a car. That would not matter if you intended to keep a car for the entire stay.

I have read every reply and want to thank everyone for the great suggestions. I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules. Keep them coming!