Northern Italy Itinerary-Flying Into Milan

Congrats on your first trip to Italy! You have 17 nights which is a nice stay but those days and nights will fly by!

I like to count nights because that is how you plan your lodging stays and your usable time for activities is really the full days between nights, i.e., 3 nights equals 2 full days of activity. Each time you change location will take half to three quarter of a day what with checking out, traveling, and checking back into lodging. Not to be underestimated is the time involved in orienting yourselves to each new city or town, so you are wise to want a nice pace.

That said, Spain is an outlier. If you want to see Spain, fly to Spain. With arrival and departure from Milan, you would spend a lot of precious time transferring to and from Spain. Instead, consider these locations in Italy in April.

• Venice - worth 3 or 4 nights. Those who do not stay there long enough tend to dislike Venice. Great place to recover from jetlag and ease into Italy
• Ravenna
• Lake Como or Stresa on Lago Maggiore
• Camogli instead of the Cinque Terre as it is less crowded
• Arezzo in Tuscany (outlier but very accessible by train)

With 17 nights, try to limit yourselves to four locations for a nice pace and you will most likely need to spend one night before departure in Milan, depending on the time your flight leaves.

Meant to add, if your last stop is Stresa or Lake Como, very easy trip to Milano for departure. Or choose one of those as a first stop after arriving for easing into Italy.

I would add the Piemonte for any extra days you have. Wine villages, much less crowded than Tuscany. We stayed near Alba. Near MXP.

Laurel and Suki:

Thanks for the quick response and suggestions. We were feeling we were trying to jam too much into the trip with a quick trip to Spain. Thanks for the confirmation.

We will start researching your suggestions.

Thanks again!!!!!

We just got back from a similar trip of 16 nights. Milan, Varenna (Lk Como), Cinque Terre. But we also had 6 nights in Switzerland. I think trying to get to Spain would be too much. Our train from Zurich to Monterosso (Cinque Terre) was about 6hrs

You'll be hitting the major tourist areas so most of the people you'll likely to meet will be tourists. Nothing wrong with that though!

We had 3 nights/2 full days in Cinque Terre and I would consider that the minimum
We arrived later than expected in Varenna (plan ahead with train tickets!) so only had one full day +half day the day we departed- Not enough time. 2 full days + the half day would have been preferable.

If you're not going shopping or to the museums you could probably shorten your visit to Milan

If you are going to loop down to CT, try to at least give your self a full day in Turin on the way back north. Wonderful city.

Thanks Marc and Alan on sharing your experiences. I think we have narrowed it down to Milan (4 nights), the Lake Como/Lago Maggiore area, and CT/Camogli. Haven't decided on the specific base for the last two. Interested in input on the number of days in each area. Also, interested in a national park Gran Paradiso. Any recommendations for where to base out of for the park and how long to stay?

I also read a posting regarding a bike route in the Lake Como area but I am unable to locate the posting. Any thoughts on biking in the area would be appreciated.

Thanks.