Mid July 2008 - Finishing tour in Verona, we have 3 days prior to leaving from Venice (6 am). Is there a city recommendation with good access to train for day trips?
(i.e. Padua, Ravenna, Rimini, Bologona) Interests: art, musuems, history.
Hotel near Venice airport for night before departure?
Posted by
US Pacific Northwest
10344 posts
Venice airport hotels: clickThere are others, use search box upper right.For daytrips, Vicenza and Bologna.
Posted by
Portlandia
3313 posts
Vicenza and Padua are on the train line between Verona and Venice. The train line to Bologna is through Padua. So I'd suggest locating a base hotel in Padua and then do a daytrip to Vicenza and another to Bologna. You should be able to get a bus from Padua to the Marco Polo airport.
Posted by
Seattle, WA, USA
7737 posts
The trick with so many of the early departures from Italy back to the States for us West Coasters is that you often have to get to the airport before public transit is going. (The nonstop transatlantic flights all depart around noon, so you have to get to that city before then.) This means you almost always have to do a taxi or private driver at some ungodly hour.
It's the biggest problem with leaving Italy. We're trying something new this time - We have a civilized departure time from Venice to Copenhagen (on SAS) where we have a 23 hour layover and then a departure back to Seattle the next day, also at a civilized hour.
Otherwise we might have done the airport hotel thing, as recommended in that link above.
Posted by
bergamo
401 posts
Mantova is fantastic too and not too far from where you will be.
Posted by
Taylor, TX, USA
416 posts
Verona itself makes a good base. Places to visit on day trips from there would be Mantova, Brescia and Reggio Nell'Emilia (cheese). A little further after Brescia is the Franchicorta (sp?) wine region so you might be able to get to a winery for a tour. Brescia has a some excellent small museums and the curators are extremely proud of them and happy to provide an impromptu guided tour for people who show a genuine interest in understanding what they are looking at. The Castello has an exhibition covering the Italian Revolution which took place in the same time frame as the American Civil War. This is when Italy became united as a single country, threw out the Austrian rulers and confined the Pope's rule to the Church and Vatican City. Brescia isn't a big tourist town which makes it even more enjoyable. Verona itself is best in the evenings when the locals are out strolling and getting their gelato.