Hello All - We will be in Northern Italy/Veneto region next week. Last minute trip. We only have 6 days to work with. Here is what I sketched out. Feel free to comment in if I might be missing something; visiting a town not worth the time; or should spend more time in an area. All suggestions welcome.
Day 1 - Arrive in Venice Direct flight from USA - Arrive in AM - Spend day in Venice- Stay the night.
Day 2- Train to Ferrera - (this is just a guess. We were thinking of heading to Bologna and thought this would be a nice stop along the way. Spend day and night in Ferrera
Day 3 - Early train to Bologna - Day and night in Bologna- We have some great restaurant suggestions.
Day 4- Early train up to Verona- Love the city - Aida in the Arena that night.
Day 5- Perhaps day 2 in Verona???? Should we move on?? Vincenza perhaps on way back to Venice??
Day 6 - Venice - Just spend last day trying to get lost in the back canals.
Day 7- Fly out mid- day to states .
Again - We are wide open for suggestions. We like to roll on the fly based on what we find and what captures our attention. Thanks for any advice.
Posted by
Portland, Oregon
5687 posts
Sounds like you have been to some/all of these places before? If so, nothing wrong with going back to favorite places. Your itinerary is a bit rushed, but you don't have much time.
Personally, I'd skip Venice in the beginning and group my days there at the end. Why not go directly to Ferrera after you arrive in Venice?
If you are wide open to suggestions, let me throw out Slovenia, perhaps my favorite country, easy to visit from Venice for a few days. It's still not nearly as touristy as Italy - not exactly undiscovered anymore but far less so than anywhere on your list, especially Venice and Verona. Ljubljana is a charming, vibrant city. Many day trip to Lake Bled or some neighboring towns. You can get from Marco Polo airport to Ljubljana by shuttle in just under three hours.
Posted by
Pleasant Hill, CA, USA
473 posts
We just returned from Italy last month and did three locations in 12 nights. Your itinerary sounds exhausting with just six days. I would just stay in Venice and do daytrip's to perhaps Verona. It was our first time in Venice and we absolutely loved it. We spent three nights and could've spent more.Traveling from city to city takes half a day. That's just my opinion.
Posted by
Forest Grove, OR
11845 posts
Stick with Venice and Verona (you have to stay in Verona for Aida and the opera is wonderful) but no need to spread yourselves so thin.
Worst case, 2 nights Bologna (proceed there immediately upon landing), then 2 nights Verona, ending with 2 in Venice.
Posted by
OP
Pennsylvania
4 posts
Thanks all for the feedback. Andrew H....I am very intrigued about the Slovenia idea. I actually played with the idea of heading to Trieste and trying to hop a train to Slovenia or Croatia. But.....not much ease grabbing a train from Trieste. I will look into the shuttle.
Our trip is very fast paced. But we tend to always travel that way. We try and limit our train travel to no more than 2 hours at a shot.
We are early risers so hopping a train at 7:00 Am and getting into the next town NLT 9:00 for breakfast and a full day of just wandering works for us. I pulled Ferrera out of the blue based on the train to Bologna. Any thoughts? Has anyone been there? Any other towns on that train line from Venice to Bologna we should consider?
We do not need to overkill Venice. I have been 6 times and my wife has been there 3 times.
Other places I played with: Vincenza, Modena, Parma? Our interests are history, local people, food....and of course...wine.
Posted by
Portland, Oregon
5687 posts
Two easiest ways to get from Marco Polo airport to Ljubljana, Slovenia probably are two transfer companies: DRD (a bus or shuttle; I've used them a few times and once it was a bus, twice it has been a van) or GoOpti. Google them to find their websites.
DRD has scheduled service, so you can plan around it. GoOpti is a flexible shared transfer service of sorts. You tell them a time you can be picked up and you put up with a range of times - so if you say you need to be picked up after 10:00am, they'll give you a range from 10am-1PM for pickup. They don't tell you the exact pick-up time til the day before (by text), because they are coordinating different people sharing the same van around the same time. Either way, you have to plan some buffer time in case of a flight delay.
I've used DRD three times, never used GoOpti even though I hear great things about them. I flew PHL-VCE back in May and took DRD a few hours later from Mestre train station, but I could have just waited at the airport and taken a DRD from there instead. I was originally planning to take a train to Trieste and a bus from there to Ljubljana, but the DRD shuttle was more convenient and explored Trieste another time.
Rick Steves's Croatia/Slovenia book is pretty good - great ideas for Slovenia, plenty of things to do there for a week, especially natural/outdoorsy stuff in Triglav National Park. You can get around by public transportation but the train system isn't nearly as good as Italy's, so you'd be taking buses. But it's easy to drive in Slovenia and usually not expensive to rent a car, and having a car lets you enjoy scenic drives and explore little towns not as easily seen by bus or train. For last-minute car rental deals, try websites like EconomyCarRentals or Auto Europe.
One possible itinerary: fly into VCE, take DRD or GoOpti to Ljubljana, spend a few days there. Rent a car and explore Lake Bled, drive over the Vrsic Pass through the Julian Alps Loops, make a few stops, return the car in Piran on the coast; take bus or shuttle or ferry back to Venice (maybe bus to Trieste, spend a night or two there, train back to Venice). If you don't want to rent a car, take day trips from Ljubljana to Lake Bled and elsewhere, then take a bus to Piran.
If you take DRD, I would buy a ticket a few days in advance and keep their phone number in your cell phone just to make sure they meet you. I have been lucky with DRD to just show up last minute and find a seat, but sometimes they are full at the last minute unless you booked ahead.