Please critique our Northern Italy itinerary

You will only have part of a jet lagged day and one full day in Venice. You might want to rethink devoting only that short amount of time to a truly great city. Perhaps you should not do the CT and concentrate solely on Venice and Florence. Just a thought. TC

I think you should fly into Venice. And then if you want to return out of Milan.
Also, I'd only stay in Florence for a day to see "David" then I'd go down to Sienna. A great Tuscan town.

How many nights on the ground?
If the total is 9 nights on the ground you could do:
3 Venice
3 Florence
2 Cinque Terre
1 Milan area (last night before flight home)
The Cinque Terre tends to be a detour which I'm not sure is worth doing on a very short trip to Italy. Also there is no guarantee the weather will be nice (April is unpredictable and rain is very possible) and with rain the Cinque Terre would be a disappointment.
Also consider that Malpensa airport is very near lake Maggiore. Spending the last couple nights before flying home on the lake ( in nearby Arona or even Stresa further up the lake), in lieu of the Cinque Terre, would not be a bad idea either.

Plan in terms of nights rather than days; days can be eaten up by travel and unforeseen delays.

Roberto's recommendations are very good for a first trip.

A great day trip from Florence is Pisa and Lucca. We really enjoyed both towns.

Thanks everyone for your comments.
Our flight is round trip to Milan; no changing that.
It sounds like passing on CT this trip might be the best idea.

Perhaps we will plan on spending more time in Venice and return to Milan earlier to do a day trip to the Lakes region.
We arrive in Milan on a Tuesday morning and fly out the following Friday.
So, perhaps:
Tuesday - take train to Venice.
Tuesday through Friday - Venice
Friday take train to Florence
Friday through Tuesday - Florence
Tuesday take train back to Milan
Tuesday through Friday - Milan
What are your opinions on this itinerary?
Is there any advantage to reverse the order: Milan - Florence - Venice - Milan?
Thanks!!

Holly,

Your revised itinerary looks good. I counted 10 nights on the ground, correct?

So your itinerary would look something like this:

Venice (3 nights)= 2 full days in Venice

Florence (4N)= 3 full days in Florence with possible day trip.(Lucca/Pisa or Siena or CT if weather is nice)

Milan or Lake Maggiore (3N) = 2 full days

Have a wonderful trip!

Edit: 10 nights go very quickly when one is on vacation!

I like the last Priscilla's itinerary, except I don't like Milan much, therefore I would spend the last 3 nights on the lake Maggiore (which is very close to the Milan Malpensa airport) instead of the city of Milan. For sure I cannot see myself spending more than 2 nights in Milan.

I agree with Roberto.

We only spent an afternoon in Milan & that was more than enough for us.

We saw the Duomo, the Sforzesco Castle & gardens.

For a trip of this length, an overnight in Milano would be sufficient; arrive early enough to see what you'd like to see there. I would prefer time in the Lakes, just to vary the content of the trip (since you have eliminated Cinque Terre).

Wouldn't trade a day on a lake for a day in CT. CT is the essence of slow travel in Italy. Might add a day to Venice. From Florence, you might rent a car for a day to drive through Tuscany: Siena, Montepulciano, San Gimignano, Volterra...whatever you have the stamina for. Everyone has their own favorite spot in Tuscany. Just overnight in Milan in preparation for your flight home.
Venice-3 nights. Florence-3 nights. CT-3 nights, Milan-1 night.

IMO, a visit to the Cinque Terre would still be worthwhile if you can fit it in. The weather could be an issue at the end of April, but it could also be nice. The long range forecast calls for temperatures of 14C / 57F high and 7C / 45F in April with 13 days of "some rainfall". Of course, it's anyone's guess which 13 days that will be. If you decide to take a chance and stay a night or two, it would be prudent to get a hotel booking SOON!

Another option would be to add a day in Florence and visit the Cinque Terre as a day trip. It will be a long day, but will give you a chance to at least have a look at it, and choose which day you want to visit based on the weather. If you'd like to try that, I'd suggest starting in Riomaggiore and ending in Monterosso, where you can enjoy a fine meal in one of the restaurants before returning to Florence.

Thanks again for all replies!

After doing further research, our current itinerary is:

Fly into Milan on a Tuesday morning.
Take the high speed train from Milan to Florence. Based on suggestions we have read here in the forum, we will not purchase advance tickets due to the uncertainty of when we will actually arrive in Milano Centrale.

We will spend the rest of Tuesday, as well as Wednesday through Saturday in Florence. (We switched Venice and Florence reasoning that more museums in Florence would be open on Wed. through Sat. vs. our earlier plan of being in Florence from Sat. to Tues.)

While in Florence we may take a day trip to Pisa.

Saturday morning we will take the high speed train to Venice. These tickets we will buy in advance since we can set our own schedule. We'll be in Venice the rest of that day, as well as Sunday and Monday.

Tuesday we will take the train from Venice to Milan.

We were considering stopping along the way (for a few hours) in Verona, or perhaps Padua or Vicenza. We gather that if we take the high speed train to Verona we need to purchase two tickets - one from Venice to Verona and a second from Verona to Milan. The regional train also travels there but it seems to take twice as long.

We will spend the next three days based out of Milan, but plan to take a trip to Lake Como and/or Lake Garda. We will have to figure out the easiest way to get there by train. We might also take the Viator day trip Bernina Express tour of the Swiss Alps.
Our next step is to purchase the train tickets from Florence to Venice, and then Venice to Milan (via Verona).

Before we purchase them, are there any other suggestions you might offer, or any "gotchas" we haven't anticipated?

Thank you!

Hollyjolly,

While in Florence we may take a day trip to Pisa.

Your updated itinerary looks great by the way!

Here are my 2 cents:

• You may want to visit Pisa & Lucca on the same day as it only takes a
  couple of hours to see the main highlights of Pisa.

• It's a good idea to purchase your tickets for the Duomo, Baptistery &
  Leaning Tower in advance before you leave on your trip so you won't
  have to wait. When we were there, we didn't have tickets, so we had
  to wait 60-90 mins. to climb the Tower & this was in October!

• While in Venice (Monday), you may want to go to Padua (Padova) as it's an easy 26 minute train ride and visit the Scrovegni Chapel (advance reservations required) which is open on Mondays ( museum closed though) and St. Anthony's Basilica (free)...
  and... you must eat a gelato at Pretto Gelateria--my favorite!

• Here is the website for booking tickets for the Scrovegni
  Chapel:http://www.cappelladegliscrovegni.it/index.php/en/

• If you want to visit Lake Garda, you may want to stay in Verona
  (instead of Milan) as it's an easy 15 minute train ride from Verona
  to Peschiera where you can take a ferry boat & visit villages along
  the lake.

• This is the website for the ferry schedules for the lakes (Garda,
  Como, Maggiore) :http://www.navlaghi.it/eng/g_comearrivare.html

Have a wonderful trip! ;-)

EDIT: Pretto Gelaterias are found in Padua & Verona-- it's the best gelato I ate on my most recent trip! http://www.gelatopretto.it/

I think both Priscilla and Roberto have given excellent advice. With respect to your most recent iteration, my one strong suggestion would be to see what you can do about spending less nights in Milan. Unless you are willing to sink a day to see the Last Supper and you really want to look at the Cathedral, I'd come up with another plan. Either you're wasting a lot of time in Milan being uninspired or you're wasting time traveling from/to Milan on your day trips.

I would suggest one of the following: 1) Like Priscilla suggests, spend some or all of your post-Venice days in Veneto (see Rick's recent episode on this site) or 2) spend a bit more time in Tuscany (I would HIGHLY suggest Siena, though you have to use the buses to get there and back).

You can also consider heading straight for the lakes and staying there instead of Milan, but that will add quite some travel time to your <2 week vacation.

Other tips you didn't ask for: Priscilla is right - Lucca and Pisa are both great and work nicely as a day trip (I personally prefer renting a bike in Lucca and going to the nightly Puccini concert. Very Italian experience). If you have three full days in Florence and are into The Art, I'd suggest getting the Firenze card. In fact, even if you will only have two days, I would consider what sites you want to see and still consider buying it. Even if you won't get your money's worth in a strict accounting sense, the time you save waiting in lines was just so clearly worth it to us. It feels awkward at some sights, but don't feel bad sending one person ahead to see about bypassing the line w/the card (sometimes it's not obvious that you don't have to wait in line, but you do not).

We went to northern Italy in April last year and loved it - have a blast!