Mother/Daughter Trip - February

You might enjoy a half-day trip from Florence to Fiesole.

That looks beautiful!! Thanks!

Milan day trip: I would either add one day to Venice and remove this or choose a location between Milan and Florence. Bologna is a great option (urban-ish in a way your daughter might appreciate) but probably needs two nights.

Florence day trip - Lucca/Pisa. You could climb the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the morning and spend the rest of the day in Lucca, then train it back to Florence. All doable by regional train.

Going towards the mountains on February 13 should depend on the weather since it will be winter. If you have good weather, even if cold, and it could be a great time and the photography will be wonderful. Otherwise stay in Milan or go to Florence early.

@nixit71
Thanks so much for the ideas! It would be tough to add a day to Venice because my college daughter will have class in Florence Monday-Thursday and I won't know what time her classes end on Thursday until her semester starts in January. So I booked Friday/Saturday night for us there to play it safe. I figure we will take an early AM train on Friday and have almost all of that day, all of Saturday and a good part of Sunday before we go back to Milan and she goes back to Florence.

I will look into Bologna and see if they have a cool hotel there for the night. I was looking at Verona too and there seems to be some nice hotel options. I'm hoping my daughter in Florence can join us for this day by taking the train from Florence to wherever we are, or she can maybe even take a train to Milan on Friday to meet us when we get out of the airport.

Lucca/Pisa sounds like a great option-thanks!!

@NickB - thank you!! I was thinking if we treat that day as a daytrip we can play it by ear based on the weather. If it's not raining we can go to the Lake but if it is maybe we would go to Verona or even just stay in Milan. But going to Florence a day early we couldn't really play by ear because I'd have already paid for the Milan hotel and need to scramble last minute to find a place to stay for one night in Florence. That kind of stresses me out thinking about it.

It's hard to decide if we should play that day by ear as a daytrip (location tbd based on weather) or just leave that morning to another location (Bologna, Verona?) and spend the night there.

February 13th: Either do a daytrip (Lake Como? Verona? Turin? Bolzano? ) OR leave Milan to spend day/night elsewhere

I would stay in Milan. You’ll barely spend any time there and there’s a lot to see, including the Duomo and Piazza del Duomo, Pinacoteca di Brera, the Last Supper, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, San Maurizio Church, Naviglio Grande, etc. At the Duomo, you can go inside and also go up to the roof.

@Marco
That is a thought too although I have been to Milan (granted it has been over 20 years ago) and it wasn't my favorite so I figured we'd want to use that day to see another place. I guess though if it's pouring rain we'd be best staying put and having a museum day.

https://www.getyourguide.com/-l32/-tc172/?cmp=bing&cmp=bing&ad_id=78134264837859&adgroup_id=1250146081718951&bid_match_type=be&campaign_id=710842782&device=c&feed_item_id=&keyword=day%20tours%20from%20florence%20italy&loc_interest_ms=242121&loc_physical_ms=74961&match_type=e&msclkid=3d123f332f041c8ba0ae558e5909b1c0&network=o&partner_id=CD951&target_id=kwd-78134517576555:loc-190&utm_adgroup=lc%3D32%3Aflorence%7Cfn%3Df4%7Cci%3D1243%3Aday%20trip&utm_campaign=dc%3D29%3Ait%7Clc%3D32%3Aflorence%7Cct%3Dcore%7Cln%3D29%3Aen%7Ctc%3Dus&utm_keyword=day%20tours%20from%20florence%20italy&utm_medium=paid_search&utm_query=day%20tours%20from%20florence%20italy&utm_source=bing

Thanks! I have never heard of Get Your Guide. I'm more familiar with Viator / Trip Advisor but will check them out!

We decided to go to Verona (and spend the night there) rather then treating Verona as a daytrip from Milan.

I read that the price of train tickets go up if you wait to buy them but what is the best thing to do if you want to play it by ear due to weather etc.? I'm not sure if we will want to leave Verona in the morning to go to Florence or spend half the day there and then take a late afternoon train to Florence. If we wait until the day of are we apt to pay double/triple the price? Or if we reserve (in advance) the morning train and then decide to stay until the afternoon can we adjust without a big penalty?

Regional tickets do not go up in price. Fast trains, like the ones you'd take from Verona to Florence do but are not exorbitant like last-minute plane tickets. Go to https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html and check journey prices for today compared to a week or more out and you'll see.

I suggest adding the trenitalia app to your phone and creating an account now. You can't add a credit card until the 1st purchase you make I believe. But it's more convenient than using the ticket machines since no lines and nobody offering to "help". You will need wifi access to use the app. You need to use Italian names (eg. Firenze, not Florence). Although come to think of it your daughter is likely to have an Italian SIM card and the app installed so she can just buy the tickets for all of you.