Northern Italy Itineray Sanity Check

5/6 stays are listed as two nights, which means one day of "being there." Understanding this itinerary which is a whirlwind tour following the Village Italy whirlwind tour would be easier if we knew what your particular interests are. You mention both trains and a car, but not whether this is a mostly train or a mostly driving trip.

For the Dolomites this website may help: https://www.suedtirol.info/en/en

I like Kastelruth but is is a very pretty, very small town. Ortisei is the largest town in that area with the widest range of hotel options, It is great for hiking because of the gondolas going up both the north and south sides of the valley. Santa Christina is smaller and I like it better.. Farther east I have also stayed in Corvara and Badia, which are also very nice and then there is Cortina d'Ampezo (which is larger) before you can head down towards Venice.

At the end of a month on the road I would recommend just staying at an airport adjacent hotel.

I have to agree that this itinerary following a series of two weeks of quick stays sounds exhausting. Two nights somewhere is one full day with two days of packing, checking out, moving bags, transferring towns and then moving bags, checking in and unpacking again on either side. I would do fewer places for longer stays. At a minimum you will probably want a couple of days to decompress and do laundry after the whirlwind schedule of the village tour.

Also you have all three big Italian lakes on your schedule but two of them for only two nights. I would narrow it down to one - or at most two - and spend more time relaxing which is what a lake vacation is for. The lake transportation makes it difficult to rush around and that is mostly the point.

I would add a couple of days to Bologna - plan a possible day trip to Ferrara if you're afraid you'll be bored - and just relax, do laundry, have a spritz or three and get ready for the next stage of your trip. I would add a night to Florence but maybe two days is enough if you have been before and then choose one lake to fully investigate. If you choose Lake Garda it will cut travelling all the way to Milan to get the lakes and back again and concentrate on the north eastern corner of the country. You will have seen Padua but there is also Verona and Brescia (both with good Roman ruins) in this area.

And I would be personally negligent if I didn't mention that you were missing Venice which is a city I love.

My $.02, it's great that you get to spend all this time in Italy just be sure you remember the places and not the logistics,
=Tod

Thanks NickB....very much appreciate the info. As far as our interests: along with the food, we really like to sightsee the natural beauty of Italy as well as seeing the amazing historical sites Italy has most everywhere you go. Picturesque towns, big city museums, Roman ruins.
Sorry I was confusing on the car/train. We want to rent a car to go to the Dolomites, everything prior would be by train. We are debating if we should rent the car in Milan prior to going to the Lakes or after we are done at the Lakes when we are heading towards the Dolomites. I have read different opinions about having a car at the lakes. What had me originally question it was seeing the travel time from Stresa to Verenna, 2hrs by car but 4hrs by train.

If the car is for the Dolomites you should check out the section on the South Tirol website about travel. Your hotel will give you a free Mobicard that is good for your stay on all local buses. You can download a Network Map to plan your excursions. Ortisei is an hour by bus from Bolzano and the bus station in Bolzano is 50 yards north of the main train. station. Leave the driving to them on that windy road and enjoy the view. Go up one Gondola... take a hike... and go down another and catch any local bus back home. At that time of the year the local buses can take you all the way to Corvara, and you can pick up a Cortina Express bus there to Cortina d' Ampezo and another Cortina Express bus from Cortina to Marco Polo Airport. The Cortina to Marco Polo ride is about 2 hours.

https://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/#/

If you want to plan hikes Gillian Price has a number of hiking guides for the Dolomites available from Ciccerone Press. Google Gillian Price books.

Thank you everyone for your replies. hiredman laid it out pretty well, I've been going dizzily down a logistics trail trying to fit too much in. Had to take a break and step back, now going to take another attempt, going to try and cut some locations out and looking at "homebase" approach with day trips. I was on that path originally, but somehow strayed. And hiredman, appreciate the Venice comment. We do have four nights (3-days) in Venice prior to our tour start date. I've been there before (wife has not), as well as Verona, and I as well love Venice.
I like the idea of adding a day to Bologna with a day trip to Ferrara, thank you. Rick highly recommends Lake Como as "the lake" to choose (hear so much of Bellagio that we have to see it) and the wife really wants to do the Centovalli Railway. That's what brought both lakes into the picture.
I guess a question before I take another stab; coming down from the Dolomites to Marco Polo Airport, is there a recommended homebase one should stay at as well as do day trips from to see a few of the NE places like Brescia, Treviso, etc. without duplicating the towns we will see on the Village Italy Tour?

BobZ, Based on spending 5 weeks in northern and central Italy this past May and June, I agree with the other posters that your additional 3 weeks in Italy after your tour will be exhausting. I looked up the Village Italy tour and see that those 2 weeks are all 2-night stays as well. You need time to stop and smell the roses. You need time to do laundry and relax and catch your breath. Both my husband and I were exhausted after 5 weeks, and your trip is more grueling than ours. We had mostly 3 and 4-night stays throughout. We rented a car for Tuscany and the Dolomites, but other than those 2 rentals, we took trains. While trains made sense, they are also tiring. Don't forget you have to pull your luggage through the train stations, haul your luggage on to the trains, then off the trains, and pull your luggage through the next train station. And then get a taxi to your hotel.

I would not want a car in Varenna. It is not necessary, and it will be too stressful.

These are some changes I would make if it were my trip:

Add more nights to Bologna. In addition to a day trip to Ferrara, you could do a day trip to Parma, which we loved. It's about a one-hour train ride from Bologna. Or just spend all the time in Bologna.

I would spend a minimum of 4 nights in Florence. There is so much to see and do in Florence. So much wonderful art and architecture. Also, Florence is very, very crowded so it takes more time to see everything and more time just to walk through the streets. Florence was more crowded than Cinque Terre and Venice. You absolutely have to book tickets in advance for places like the Accademia, Uffizzi Gallery, Duomo complex, etc.

We enjoyed our 3-night stay in Milan. There is a lot to do in Milan. Tour the Milano Duomo and make sure to go up on the amazing rooftop. You might be interested in seeing The Last Supper painting. I wasn't able to get tickets because the only day we could see it was the first Sunday of the month, when The Last Supper is free (along with other museums) so it was impossible to get tickets. I do think Milan deserves at least 3 nights.

Definitely spend 4 nights in Varenna, which is what we did, and we still didn't see everything. Varenna, Bellagio, etc are also very crowded so you need time to navigate the crowds. We were fortunate in that we had rainy weather with some sun, and I think that kept the crowds away. Fewer daytrippers from Milan. So we were able to walk right up to the ferry ticket booth and buy our tickets, and then walk right on to the ferry. Posters on this forum wrote about waiting in lines for one hour to buy their tickets, and then waiting one hour to board the ferry. Unless you are an early riser and can be at the docks by 7AM. So it does take time to get around the lake.

We really liked the convenience of having a rental car for the Dolomites. When you are there, be sure to visit Val di Funes, about a one-hour drive from Ortisei. It was one of the highlights of our trip. In fact, the Dolomites was our #1 favorite destination in Italy.

Hope this helps.
Karen