Northern Italy in August

“Stuck?” Ha! A lot of people want your problem!

I know, it’s hot, but there are options. I think of Northern Italy as waaayyyyy north and we go annually to the Val Gardena in the Dolomites. It is easy to spend a week in the mountains…or even two weeks!

Look at Ortisei, Santa Cristina, or Selva. Get an apartment for a long stay then enjoy car free living, hiking, lifts to beautiful vistas, relaxing temperatures. If it hits 80 in the valley it is a surprise and it cools off at night.

While this is not on a train line, Ortisei is an hour by (nice) bus from Bolzano. Once in town your lodging will give you a pass to use on the area buses which are all quite nice and very efficient.

Be aware that August is high season in the mountains so you’ll want to reserve ASAP.

My daughter was just in Bolzano and loved it. Full of German/Austrian influences, good food, very nice people, pretty town, easy buses to hiking areas,

Verona and Padua are two towns people like on this Forum and worth investigating.

Near the Dolomites, you also have Lake Garda. While not my favorite spot on the lake (I would prefer Salo or Riva del Garda, but there are no trains there), Peschiera del Garda is pretty, and convenient as it is right on the Milan-Venice railway. Crowds cannot be avoided there, but it is a small town. A week is perhaps a bit much there, but day trips to Verona and Brescia as well as elsewhere along the lake are very easy.

We were just in Northern Italy this past August. We went to Lake Como, Verona, and Venice. It was very hot for parts of our trip. We looked into going to the Dolomites but it was a last minute trip and couldn't find places to stay.

Verona was the hottest for us. 97 the day we arrived. By the time we left, the high was going to be 84 so a bit of luck (or not) involved too.

Your best bet to avoid the heat is to visit the lakes and the mountains. It was warm in the afternoons at Lake Como and Lake Garda (where we went for a day to escape the heat of Verona) but not unbearable. There was a wonderful mountain breeze at night. I would look into the Dolomites as they would be perfect in August.

Bolzano was not much cooler than Verona (we checked). I understand that the way it is situated in the mountains results in it being hot even though it is far north.

You will probably get lots of excellent suggestions. Research and see what appeals to your interests. Here are some of the places in Northern Italy on train lines that I particularly enjoyed. Some are bigger than others. Some make a good base, others a daytrip or just a night or two.
Trento- I very much liked Trento and it would make a good base for seeing other nearby places. Train station is close to the historic center of town. Easily walkable.
Vittorio Venetto - a much smaller town on train line. Very old town square.
Verona - a more popular tourist destination and a city not a small town but very lovely with lots to see/do. Easy access to Vicenza or even Padua (Padova).
Sirmione - with its castle in Lake Garda, super picturesque. We took a bus from Verona and visited as a daytrip. Train line goes nearby to Desenzano del Garda but no train station in Sirmione.
Ferrara - I often saw Ferrara recommended here on this forum. I stayed there two nights and also liked it very much.

Here are places I have researched and are on my wish list of future places to visit because they also look very appealing. All are on train lines.
Trieste
Udine
Monselice (a friend who lives near Pordenone recommended we visit here if we get the chance.)
Mantua (Mantova)
Vipiteno
the walled town of Cittadella
Borghetto sul Mincio - this little village is officially designated as one of Italy's prettiest villages. It is located in Valeggio sul Mincio which does not have a train station. It is not very far from Verona. Look into bus transportation.

At that time of year, altitude is key if you want to be reasonably sure of avoiding unremitting heat. That means staying somewhere on a bus line, not on a rail line. Bolzano, for example, is down on the train line at an altitude of 860 feet. It can be very hot in the summer, and a lot of the less expensive lodgings are not air conditioned.

What do you mean by "SMALL towns"? Our recommendations may be more useful to you if we have a better idea of what size place you're thinking of. Bolzano has a population over 100,000, as does Ferrara. Padua and Verona are over 200,000.

Are you not going to rent a car? I depend on public transportation myself, but August is peak season, so it will be hard to avoid touristy spots if you are limited to places on a rail line. The Italians, Austrians and Germans are well aware that the Dolomite villages are very pleasant during the summer even if not so many Americans go there. I haven't been to the lakes recently enough to have any idea about the less-touristy possibilities there (if any).

Check out Treviso, where we stayed for a week very happily. Lots of flavor.

Two small towns in the Veneto that we visited for just the day were slightly disappointing --- Cittadella has a great wall that you can walk on and we had a good lunch there, but the interior of the town did not seem at all interesting. And Vittorio Veneto looked wonderful in photos (and we had a good lunch there, too) but it turned out that the main street cutting through the town was incredibly full of fast traffic because people were avoiding a stretch of nearby highway with tolls.

We only visited Ferrara for the day, but it looked like a great town to spend a week in.

Parma, Modena, Ravenna. Camogli. Alba. All smaller towns with train stations we enjoyed for 5 – 7 nights.

I guess Verona and Padua are cities, but didn't seem like it when we spent a week in each.