Italy late September 2023

Responses I’ve received. Sorry this is a pain everyone!

Venice 4 nights
RENT A CAR IN VENICE PIAZZALE ROMA DRIVE TO ORTISEI IN VAL GARDENA (via Cortina)
Dolomites 4 nights (STAY IN VAL GARDENA)
DRIVE TO 5 TERRE
Cinque Terre 2 nights (STAY IN MONTEROSSO, MORE AND BETTER PARKING OPTIONS)
DRIVE TO TUSCANY
Siena 4 nights
IF YOU FLY OUT OF FLORENCE, YOU NEED TO SPEND THE NIGHT BEFORE THE FLIGHT IN FLORENCE. YOUR FLIGHT WILL LIKELY DEPART BEFORE 7AM

AND

You mention you will have 12 nights, but your trip as posted is for 14.
I agree with Roberto on travel plan, but skipping the 2 nights in Cinque Terre as it seems you don’t have them anyway. No worries on a car park then.
Val Gardena is a wonderful base although I only know it in the winter.

Hi Mandy,
Yay! It worked!

I will add the replies you received on my post:

*From Laurel:*

Mandy,
Late September is off-season in the Dolomites. Where, exactly, are you interested in visiting there? Since you’ll have a car you may be OK even though it is ‘tween hiking and skiing seasons. What do you want to do while in the mountains?

*From ChristineH:*

FWIW Mandy I think your plan looks great!
Not knowing what responses you've already received the only thing that jumps out to me is your flight home from Florence. Unless it is late in the day, I'd want to be staying IN Florence the night before departure. I know it's just over an hour drive but that would make me nervous- (traffic, construction delays, etc). YMMV
Hopefully car rental rates will come down by next Sept so keeping it while in CT could be fine. I assume you will want the car in Siena to visit more of Tuscany.
Welcome to the forum!

Hello again, Mandy,

You may consider traveling via public transportation for part of your trip.
I’ve read that car rentals are very expensive these days, but who knows what prices will be like in 2023.

Anyway, if you decide to travel via public transportation, it will look something thing like this:

Take train from Venice to Bolzano, then bus to Ortisei (Val Gardena), then bus back to Bolzano and train to Cinque Terre (Monterosso) - this will be a long trek!
From Monterosso (or from any of the villages in C.T.) take train to Siena, then bus or train to Florence for your last night before flying home.

Check out Laurel’s hiking/walking guidebook when planning your time in the Dolomites.
You’ll find more information on her profile, as well as her travel blogs- just click here

Welcome to the forum!

Edited to add…
Check train schedules here: Trenitalia.com

While in Siena, if you plan to visit some small towns in Tuscany or Umbria, you may consider getting a car for a couple of days.

We chose the Dolomites because of the beauty and we love to hike. I’m hoping that late September we will still be able to get a few hikes in. I checked the average temperatures and the cooler weather is perfect for us to hike, as long as there is no snow. I took a look at Airbnb and there are plenty of rentals that are available in late September. Does anyone know when restaurants close, or do they as I would assume skiing takes over as the main attraction in the area?

Thanks for the info Priscilla! High rental prices may dictate how we travel. Thank you for giving another option. I can always take Cinque Terre out of our itinerary if getting there by public transportation wii make our travel too long. I hope I don’t have to do that tho. Do you consider driving in Italy, specifically the areas that I will visit, easy to drive? I do also worry a bit about the ZTL zones.

Hi Mandy,

I’ve visited all the places on your list, except for the Dolomites, all by public transportation.

I’ve not driven in Italy, but I’m sure others who have will chime in with more information.

Have you visited Italy before?

Are you sure your airline of choice flies out of Florence?

If not, may have to fly out of Milan or Rome.

No, I’ve never been to Italy. Florence is a longer flight with 2 stops. Rome would be a direct flight. Would it be crazy to depart from Rome? I had planned a trip 5 years ago that had to be canceled, Rome was a part of my itinerary then. I left it out this time because it’s my plan to come back and visit Rome and the Amalfi Coast. But we could depart from Rome if it’s a nota big deal to get to from Siena. Lots to think about.

When I put my first comment in the other thread I didn’t know this was your first trip to Italy.
Rental cars are outrageous after Covid. I just returned from Italy where I rented a manual Fiat500L this month and I paid over $1,600 for 15 day rental, so over $110/day. Unfortunately I need a car to reach my country house in Tuscany so I don’t have other options.
If it’s your first time in Italy and plan to fly out of Florence, I would stay in Florence instead of Siena and visit Siena from Florence via bus. Using Florence as a base you don’t need a rental car and you can see several Tuscan towns using public transportation, including Siena. Florence is Tuscany’s public transportation hub. You can also visit the Cinque Terre from Florence by train on a day trip and hike there as well. It’s a 2-2.5 hour train trip each way but doable especially if you start your day early.
Although the Dolomites can be reached by bus from Bolzano, that is a portion of your trip where I would use a car, as it would be more efficient.
In a trip that is less than 2 weeks I would also limit my Venice stay to 3 nights. That is enough to visit Venice and also Murano/Burano islands.

Roberto- thanks for you input again. If car rentals drop by the time of my trip, would you still recommend public transportation? Didn’t know if your suggestion was mainly due to rental prices or if the roads can be a little difficult to navigate?
If we did not have a car in Tuscany, how is public transportation between Siena and other towns? Florence is really not on my list to see but if it’s the only way to efficiently use public transportation and car rentals are still high, we would be willing to stay in Florence.

Siena also has the ztl so you might want to consider staying just outside of the city and visiting it. I stayed 4 nights in a great studio (they have 4 accommodations). From there I visited Siena for a day (took the bus there and back), toured the gorgeous duomo and was lucky enough to be there when the stunning floors were uncovered. Did a day trip to the beautiful towns in the val d'orcia (montalcino, pienza, montepulciano) one day, day trip to San gimingano, volterre, monteriggioni another day etc.
Went back into Siena the last night for dinner (drove in and parked just at the entrance and before the ztl)
Accommodation: (I stayed in the studio dolce. It was so lovely. Private outside area as well as the public outdoor area).
https://www.lacoroncinalodging.com/

Wendy_d thank you for the input! Staying outside of Siena is not something I even thought of but will definitely consider! Thanks for apartment link, it looks just like something we would want! I may ask you more questions when I get closer to booking accommodations.

Public transportation to Tuscany towns is limited, very few have train service
Tuscany is the one place I’d say you really need a car, but if you only want to visit a town or 2 then it is doable by bus.

If rental rates are still high then you’ll want to rent car for just the days you really need.

Driving in Italy requires skills that not all Americans have. If you know how to drive in Manhattan or San Francisco, you can easily drive in Italian cities and towns.. If you know how to drive in small minor curvy mountain roads in America, you can drive the country roads of Tuscany. But if your experience at home is only in the typical American suburb where roads and freeways are large, flat, and straight, and parking is easy and plentiful, then you will sweat bullets driving in Italy.
I also suggested Florence because it is a city that every American seems to love, and you plan to fly out of there, which basically means that you must spend at least your last night in Florence. For a first time visitor to Italy, I would say Florence is a must.

You can still hike in late September and there will be lodging and restaurants. In fact, this year the lifts seem to be staying open longer than I have experienced in the past. 2022 schedule here https://www.valgardena.it/en/summer-holidays-dolomites/lifts/. You do want to use buses where possible. The buses are also encouraged by the provision of a free pass with your lodgings in an attempt to keep roads from being jammed and to reduce pollution. Even if you have a car, you should plan on parking it when you are doing daily hikes as you will sometimes start on one lift and hike one-way to another or to where a bus will pick you up. In other words, there are a lot of great one-way hikes.

Skip the Cinque Terre if you only have 2 nights for it. Long way to go from Bolzano area for two nights. You’ll have a better time hiking in the mountains, IMO.

Roberto-Although we don’t drive in big cities everyday, we have tackled LA, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta as well as the mountains of CO. I think we’d be ok but would prob only use the car when it seems like it’s necessary and public transportation is not available or would slow us down. I will look a little more into Florence. It just hadn’t stood out to me as being a must but I will definitely do more research. Roberto and others, what do you find special about Florence?
Laurel-thanks for the info on the Dolomites. It’s good to know that the area is still operating in late September. We will definitely take advantage of the local buses for our hikes. Is there a website that I can find regarding bus schedules? Also, if we could add another day to CT, would that make it worth the travel?

Here is a bus scheduling site. They have an app, too. https://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/

You will also get a paper schedule with your bus pass,

Thank you Laurel! I think you are the author of the Dolomite book that was recommended?I look forward to reading it!

Well, in Florence you can walk the same streets as Dante, Brunelleschi, Giotto, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Galileo, to name just a few of the most well-known.

It's a city that was established by Julius Caesar, gave birth to the Renaissance, was home to the Medici family, a center of banking, industry, culture, and learning for hundreds of years, was occupied by the Nazis in WWII, and suffered a catastrophic flood in 1966 that caused worldwide concern for its lost and ruined treasures.

Florence is said to hold the greatest concentration of art for its size in the world, with 2/3 of the most visited museums in Italy but also many churches full of art where it was meant to be seen. There is much outdoor public art, including enjoyable modern-day street art. Also well-preserved medieval and Renaissance buildings and palaces. It's darned hot and humid and crowded in the summer, but otherwise by far my favorite city anywhere.

My thoughts .... Italy may look like a small country east to west but it's not and transportation east to west is difficult. Personally, I wouldn't even do Venice and Florence in the same trip, although many do. Yo ucould concentrate around Veneto and the dolomites or concentrate around Florence and included CT.
We almost always rent a car but there are some days we train and some days we hire a private driver.

I agree with Roberto that 4 nights in Venice is too long. I would take a night at least off it. You could add that night (or two) to another location, CT if you really want to see it. Two full days in Venice is really plenty, unless you spend an entire day in a museum, which my husband could do!!

Thanks for everyone’s input! You all have given me things to consider and I appreciate it. Since everyone has different traveling styles, it’s great to get some different opinions. And I’ve never been to Italy so I obviously don’t have the insight. My thinking for 4 days in Venice was more about jet lag. I’ve only been to Europe once and it took me about 3 days to feel rested. We hit the ground running on that trip and I hit a big wall on day 2. I kind of thought Venice was a good starting place because it is smaller and I felt like we could take it slow, resting when needed. But I may cut it to 3 days so we can add another day somewhere else.

3 nights in Venice on a 14 night trip is just perfect
Arrival day get over jet lag and get your bearings
Day 2 sights and get lost
Day 3 go to Burano