North Italy

What kinds of things are you interested in? Do you like cities or villages for example? Culture or nature? Wine? Mountains?
Do you have a guide book? How did you pick your destinations before?

What time of year is this trip? What sort of budget are you working with? I found Lake Como and the Dolomites very pricey during late August and early September this year, and lodging in Verona shoots up during the opera festival. There are many places typically much more reasonable. I don't think any of us can be sure about the impact of Holy Year, but I guess you can look at hotel rates on booking.com to get an idea.

We stayed a week in Turin, and there was much to see and do- Egypt Museum, the Savoy Royal Palace, the Madama palace over Roman ruins, the National Cinema Museum in the Mole Antonelliana Tower., lovely cafes. There is a Fiat museum, but it was closed when we visited at the tail-end of covid. If you do go to Turin, I suggest watching the original Italian Job movie with Michael Caine, which was filmed mostly in Turin, to get a feel for the city. It’s a classic.

Another vote for Turin/Torino. We stayed 8 days in October and could easily have stayed longer. Beautiful piazzas, architecture, museums, great food and warm/helpful locals.

Is this a different trip than what you asked about a few days ago, which included Turin?

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/last-minute-trip-to-northern-italy

Is it OK to stay in Milan and take day trips to Turin, Verona or other cities?

I like plunking myself down in one hotel for a nice, long time, but those aren't the sorts of places I'd want to daytrip to, because they have a lot of sightseeing options. A visit of less than a full day wouldn't do it for me. I spent 2-1/2 days in Verona earlier this year and knew I'd have to return. Turin is a lot larger. Now, it's a different story if you just have one or two specific sights to target in each city and no real interest in wandering around.

There's also the fact that Milan--as a major business city--doesn't have especially low hotel rates, in general. Turin is likely to have less expensive lodging than Milan. The same could well be true of Verona, though rates will be affected by what's going on at the time of your visit in each city.

Brescia is interesting and closer to Milan. I spent about two full days sightseeing there, but you could see a lot in one day. I haven't been to Pavia or Novara, but they are also closer to Milan.

Wherever you decide to head, I'd recommend checking the train schedules and fares ahead of time. You'll often have a choice of a low-cost but fairly slow regional train and an express that can be rather expensive (especially if you're just making a day trip) if you buy the tickets close to the date of travel.

Doing whatever you want is fine.

Only you can define what your - as a group - interests are and decide on a plan. Personally I think Milan is a place where 14 days would seem like a lot. It is a big, busy, traffic filled city that's doing a lot of important things but not all that many of them are interesting to tourists.

If you're not interested in trying to organize a large group of people from hotel to hotel I can sympathize.
From Milan allowing about an hour you can day trip to: Turin, Lake Como, Brescia, Bergamo, Verona, Bologna, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena and probably some others I'm forgetting. If you're willing to commit to 2+ hours Venice and Florence are also in the mix and that's a really good selection of places to visit. And maybe people would be willing to stay the night in places like Venice to make it worth it, but that's up to your group.

But I think several of these places deserve more than a day trip and I would be concerned that with 14 days to explore Milan would not be my choice for a base city to get the "flavor of Italy". Dictated to the interests of your group I would suggest a couple of different bases during your 14 days allowing for getting a sense of several different cites and the doing day trips from those places.
My top suggestions would be Turin, Milan, Bologna, and maybe Verona.
Bologna with its college town vibe puts Florence in reach for day trips along with the Parma area and Ferrara.
Verona is chic and puts Padua/Padova, Vicenza, Brescia, Lake Garda and Venice within day trip range.
Turin is tucked in corner but if there is enough that interests your group it will support several days of exploring.

I think a couple of bases - limiting the amount of hotel shifting - would allow your group to get the feel of several very different cities and the opportunity to explore more places if they feel like it.

There is no right answer - just the right answer for you.

Hope that helps, have a great trip!
=Tod

I spent five nights in Milan earlier this year. I liked the city a lot, and I knew going in that I'd need to return. But I am nuts about art museums and Art Nouveau architecture, both of which are on prominent display in Milan, in quantity. It's not a city I'd recommend for a five-night or longer stay to someone else who is not my clone. And two weeks is a very long time. I'm afraid you and your group are going to be disappointed.

I don't think you've told us what time of year you're planning for. It might matter.

Thank you, I was thinking about Milan as a base I because I did not want to do day excursions every day and thought that we could alternate days in Milan with one day excursions from there. I wonder what is preferable for travel, train or bus and should we make arrangements ( by tickets for transportation) from US?
TYIA
Lana

You'll need to get into Milan from the airport. Assuming you land at Malpensa Airport MXP it's about an hour outside the city. There is a train that drops you in the city at Cadorna, Porta Garibaldi and Centrale stations for 12e a person. It's hard to beat this price since a cab is over 100e but if you can all fit in one vehicle it might be worth it to get right to the hotel versus a train station and then still need to reach your hotel via cab or metro.
https://www.italiarail.com/airport-transfers/malpensa-to-milan

Milan has buses and metro to get around a lot of the city. Google maps does a decent job in getting you around via bus and metro when plotting your way around.
https://www.walksofitaly.com/blog/travel-tips/public-transport-milan

There are several taxi apps. I've had good luck with AppTaxi in the north and sometimes there's nothing better than a cab back your hotel from somewhere. Otherwise taxis have to be taken from designated taxi stands.

Day trips are a little trickier because fast train tickets can be purchased in advance at a significant discount but then you're tied to that time, train and seat. So you're trading flexibility for price and buying a fast train ticket for the next day means you'll be paying full price so there is some pre-planning you'll need to do in advance if you want to save money. Tickets are generally available about 2 months before departure.
Regular regionale trains come without seat reservations, are always the same price and can't sell out so there's no reason to buy those until you need them. Trenitalia has an app to keep tickets, buy new ones and check trains in real time.

The plan to do multiple days trips also can dictate where you want to stay. The fast trains leave from Centrale but the area around the station is not the best nor that interesting to tourists. I would plan to stay on a metro line that runs to Centrale if possible because you'll be using it a lot.

If anyone in your party is interested in fashion do not miss the Armani Silos which is four custom built floors featuring Armani designs from the different decades in an old factory. You can wander around the clothes that are on custom mannequins not just look at them from a distance.

Hope that helps,
=Tod

I think it's fair to say that most of us would prefer a train to a bus if the travel time was equal--and the train will often be faster. You can move around on the train, and there will be an onboard toilet, something you may not have on a bus. If you decide to go somewhere without rail service, or with no conveniently timed trains, you shouldn't hesitate to take a bus. However, it is sometimes harder to find reliable bus schedules online. Buses are usually cheaper.

Thanks to alohalover for suggestion to watch the original Italian Job with Michael Caine, it looks great! And to Claire who answered on another thread with details of her stay in Turin, great ideas!

Bologna is a great rail hub and an important city for many other reasons. Emilia-Romagna is a region that gets insufficient attention from tourists from the US. Parma, Modena, Ravenna and Rimini are all terrific visits easily reached as day trips from Bologna.