Padua, Venice and northern Italy advice for 9 day trip.

First thing, check your flight options in and out of Venice. For some people, flights home are very early in the morning. In that case, you may wish to fly out of another city>.

We visited Verona in a day. We felt we could have spent more time, but we saw a lot in a day. I'd suggest three full days in Padua.

1. Padua, day tripping by train
2. 3n and 2d
3. Venice isn't difficult getting in and out of, but transportation modes and hotel location affect your experience.
4. Vicenza?

You do not want to fly out of Venice if it’s an early morning flight unless you’re willing to pay for an expensive water taxi to the airport. Venice is a great city to fly into and recover from jet lag in, but the infrastructure is somewhat limited since you’re on a lagoon that’s car free.
Drive from Padova to Aquileia and take a direct train from Padova to Verona. Personally, I would sleep in either Venice or Padova but not both. The more you move around the less fun it is, plus it’s time consuming to change hotels.

Many folks on the forum just LOVE Venice, and would spend lots more time there, but I get the impression that this is a dip-a-toe-in-the-water trip for the teen so this is more rushed than I would make it for myself,.

Nine days means eight really on the ground. Getting in and out of Venice depends almost entirely on where you are staying in the city. Many great locations in town take a bit of work to get back to the main train station.
You can check the train schedules on https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html. Taking the train to Padua or Verona is easy enough.

Padua is a lovely small city, but might wear out its welcome after you visit the Cathedral and the Scrogveni Chapel.
https://www.cappelladegliscrovegni.it/index.php/it/
There is also a recent forum post about a visit to Padova.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/short-trip-report-scrovegni-chapel-cappella-degli-scrovegni

If you saw the Milan-Cortina Olympic closing ceremony it was held in the Verona Coliseum. We loved attending an opera there so maybe you would want to spend at least one night there to catch an opera. Carmen is not my personal favorite, but the venue is a once in a lifetime thing. My impressions are that Verona has more to offer than Padua - once you are past the Chapel which is Spectacular.

https://www.arteconcerto.com/arena-di-verona?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22705161282&gbraid=0AAAAAD2J5rPydLSCPsw-imHIrF4-jf7n5&gclid=Cj0KCQjww8rQBhDjARIsAE43KPPJrp-SuJEbmIoFSkCI_JLTAhkhm70n7srWRIdbBtjI48Ufg40CstcaAiILEALw_wcB

Once in Verona you could also go north to Bolzano (one and a half hours) and visit Otzi the Ice Man and look around at the beginning of the Alps for a day trip and then return to Verona.

Maybe a trip something like:
Day 1 arrive in Venice, get to your hotel with a water taxi from the airport to St Mark's square. Walk around to get settled into the time zone.
Day 2 Explore Venice
Day 3 Explore Venice in the morning and take a late afternoon train to Padua
Day 4 Visit the Chapel and Cathedral and explore the city
Day 5 Take a morning train to Verona
Day 6 Explore Verona/Bolzano day trip and attend an opera performance in the Coliseum
Day 7 Morning train to Ravenna (3 hours) and visit the various mosaics sites
Day 8 Explore Ravenna more in the morning and catch an afternoon train to Bologna (75 minutes or so)
Day 9 Fly out of Bologna

You do realize that the teen-soon-to-be-a-college-student will need to do a semester abroad in Italy after this right?

Venice is easy to get in and out of providing you stay at a hotel near the train station. This will also facilitate travelling to Padua and Verona by train. A basic, good-value hotel we stayed at just steps away from the Venice train station is Guesthouse Alloggi Agli Artisti.

I suggest 3 nights in Venice, 3 nights in Padua and 2 nights in Verona.

Get the app Rome2Rio for planning transport. It gives you train, bus andcar options. For Venice vaporetto trips, get the app Chebateo?.

Be very careful with Rome2Rio. I would only use it as a first brush at determining transportation. It has been known for erroneous information or not including all options. I prefer Google Maps.

There is so much to do In Padua and Venice. I don't consider either to be a day trip. They are about an hour and a half each direction on public transportation. I don't really consider it difficult to get into or out of Venice, but it can take multiple forms of transportation.

I have not yet been to Ravenna, but I sure would like to get there. It could make sense to fly into Venice stay a few nights, then head to Padua for a few nights, then Ravenna, and end in Bologna to fly home. But, you really need to play with flights to see what flight times you'd have available. For example, I once planned a trip to start in Rome and end in Naples. When I found out I could only fly home at 6am from Naples, I switched my itinerary to fly into Naples and out of Rome.

You will find that there are many styles of travel. Some pack larger bags and check them, while others only bring carry on luggage. Some like to have limited "base cities" and do many day trips. For myself, I pack in a carry on bag with packing cubes and can pack up in just a little more time than it takes me to get ready in the morning. The logistics have to be really bad or a place would have to be very special for me to travel more than 2.5 hours on "day trips". I find long hours on a train exhausting and I don't like the "backtracking" and much prefer staying at a place for a few nights and then move on to another town.

When we were in Venice in 2025, it was very crowded, as it always is. One way to deal with the crowds and see what we want to see was to be out at 7:30am. The city was so pleasant until about 9:30am. Likewise, it calmed down around 5/6pm. When you overnight in a city, you can see the city without a bunch of day trippers.

When we stayed in Padua we did day trips to Vicenza and Verona. Venice is a more expensive place to stay so my inclination would always be to stay in Venice to see Venice and stay elsewhere to see places beyond Venice.

And from Verona not a long train ride to Milan....and many more flight options

I’ve never heard of Aquileia! And it’s probably because it looks like a tough nut to crack. I see guided tours out of Venice, they aren’t cheap but compared to renting a car and all that it’s justifiable. Verona is easily reached from Padua.

There’s some good points about flying out of Marco Polo. We had an early ish morning flight and grabbed a bus from Padua, which was cheap and easy. I feel like there’s an impulse to maybe avoid Venice a little here and I think you need to resist it. You’ll want 3 nights at a minimum. You don’t want to day trip here, if anything you want to day trip out. The difference between Venice at night versus day is… well like night versus day. By sunset the Grand Canal can be positively tranquil, a super highway turned country road. You’ll want to be around for that and will feel smart when you do.

Padua is super charming and has a university vibe to it too. Great place to stay for a couple nights. I think if you split between these two places you’d be happy. With 7-8 nights, you could justify using one to get to Bologna or Milan for a night and flight back, but I’d only do this if it was significantly better/cheaper.

I am just back from Italy after 5 weeks.

Did all of the places you are mentioning either last month or 2 years ago.

Art loving teen. If she does not know about Dr Rocky Ruggerio's free Italian online art history class, they need to check it out. I've been doing it for about 10 years every Tuesday.

Bologna: I adore Bologna, so much to see and do and would spend a lot of time there.
Padua: did a day trip from Vicenza only to see the Scrovegni Chapel. I had taken a Po River cruise the last time I was there and it was delightful.

Venice-extremely crowded but walking out of the train station viewing the Grand Canal is one of the most outstanding views of my life. Vaporetto Pass for me was a must. Bought 7 days, were there for 4 and would have spent 119euros on tickets otherwise. I always go back to Burano. (Hint: if going to Burano get off at Mazzorbo and walk though the park this way when you leave to go back to Venice, get on the very crowded vaporetto who all will get off at the main Burano stop and this way you will have a seat on the way back.)

Ravenna-mosaics are outstanding and the town delightful and easy to navigate.

I have mentioned that the word of 2026 travel is structure. Generally means now that most sites require tickets, most are timed unless you want to spend hours on line. Some like the Chapel only allow 25 people at a time in encapsulated entrances.

Major sites: most tour buses arrive by 930 so you might want to get to major sites before then or go later in the afternoon. I might even want to check cruise ship dockings to plan if you could skip Venice on those days although I went to fabulous Palladian house outside Vicenza and their were 3 large tour groups just from Viking.

Lucky teen, great Mom.

For art-loving teenager in Italy, Rocky also has youtube videos, Elaine Ruffolo has free Sunday zoom lectures, and the British Institute in Florence has free Wednesday lectures by guest speakers. The British Institute also offers zoom (and in person) art history classes that are excellent and much more in depth. Also on youtube, art critic Waldemar Januszczak --- I like his older documentaries more than his podcasts (more art, less joking).

I recommend Vicenza. We stayed several nights in Vicenza and day tripped to Padova. Verona is an easy train ride but I'd spend the night if you could. Bologna might have less connections depending on your final destination. I frequently go to Rome to fly out of and my daughter goes to Milan since Bologna doesn't have a lot of connections. Easy to travel to Vicenza, Verona by train. Ravenna is an easy train ride from Bologna but with all of the great mosaics to see I would spend the night there. I enjoy walking the streets in the late evening. Ravenna's mosaics are spectacular and you won't find anything better in Italy.