Hi everyone, would like to get some advise on how a 16 day 15 night itinery would look like.
We have not decided where to fly in from.
Some areas we would like to cover:
-Rome
-Venice
- Bologna
- ortisiei/Gardena/ Balzone (christmas markets/huddling up & seeing snow capped mountains)
Would an Austria/bavarian alps addition make sense?
Parma also sounds interesting for meats ;)
How would you allocate nights on these & any side trips you would recommend?
15 nights for Rome, Venice, Bologna and the Val Gardena sounds about right.
Fly into Venice, spend 4 nights
Then take the train to Bolzano and spend your time in Ortisei - again 4 nights is good and certainly no less than 3
Bologna is the logical next stop, or Parma. Stay in one and day trip to the other, minimum 3 nights
End up in Roma and fly out of there. 4 nights is the minimum to allow
That is easily 15 nights. I would not add another location.
Balzone - do you mean Bozen (Bolzano)???
Signficant snow before christmas is far from certain, there may be some on the mountain tops but even getting a view of that may involve travel much further into the higher areas. The ski season in the higher resorts starts just before christmas but I suspect that without christmas they would leave it a few more weeks - and without artificial snow blowers they would be out of business. I've checked the weather archives for nearby Meran, in December 2016 it didn't drop below freezing until 30 December. It's a very nice area but I think you have a romantised view and could be disappointed.
Austria and Bavaria would not be significantly better and not worth the extension.
