Please Help Us Plan a Tour of the Dolomites and Lakes

You do have a busy trip. Only one night in Lake Como doesn't really allow for alot. Como itself was not my favorite place on the lake. We stayed near Bellagio. I thought it was a lot nicer and much more to see in that area. Ferries are constant at Bellagio and much shorter rides to places like Veranna which everyone seems to like. One day will allow you to kind of glance at the lake and that is all. Might want to save it for another trip if that is all the time you have. Time might be better spent seeing Verona, Padua or just spending more time in Milan which has alot to see.

You are backtracking up and down. First you go all the way from Rome to Venice, then come back down to Tuscany, then up north again to the Dolomites, which are very close to Venice. Couldn't you do your Tuscany tour immediately after Rome and Assisi before heading to Ravenna and Venice?
If you can't I guess you are stuck wasting time on trains up and down (which is expensive also).
Maybe for the first 9 days before the tour, you might want to visit other things south of or near Tuscany (e.g. Gulf of Naples, Amalfi Coast, Umbria, Cinque Terre), then the last week before flying back, you go to Ravenna, Venice and Milan/Pavia. Dolomites would not fit in this scenario.

If you are set on your plan and want to visit Verona, Garda and the Dolomites, I'd take a train from Florence to Verona. After visiting Verona I'd rent a car from Verona and drive through Lake Garda, Dolomites (Val Gardena) then back down toward Milano. You can visit the Certosa di Pavia in just a few hours.

You can't fit also lake Como in less than a week. Just Lake Garda is enough. If you want to spend the last night on a lake, instead of Milan, drive all the way to lake Maggiore and spend your last day there. I don't know what time your flight is, but lake Maggiore is very close to Malpensa airport. Return the car at Malpensa the morning of departure.

Thanks very much, Roberto. You are absolutely right about our backtracking twice, but our Tuscany tour dates are fixed and we thought it would have been too much to squeeze Venice in with the Dolomites and Lakes within that last week. Thanks for the tip about the airport and its proximity to Lake Maggiore. It seems inevitable that we will have to leave a couple of things out in the last week, and you have given us some thoughtful suggestions. Thanks!

And thank you, Tom, for your wise suggestions about Lake Como and how best to spend time there. You are absolutely right that we have too many dreams for that last week. We vowed not to cram too much in, yet once we get dreaming, we violate that vow! Self-discipline is in short supply and in great demand when trying to plan a trip to Italy!!

I have visited Certosa di Pavia, easily done by car in less than three hours.

I would suggest choosing one lake and spending a couple of nights there.

You might be interested in Padova as a half-day trip from Venice (Saint Anthony's Basilica instead of the Certosa di Pavia, plus the Capella Scrovegni).

You can take a train to Bolzano, rent a car there for your time in the Dolomites, return the car to Bolzano, and then take the train back down again. You definitely need a car to get around...buses are OK but you won't see nearly as much and you won't be able to get to some places easily. I will be honest - some of the roads over the passes are white-knuckle but worth it for how spectacular the views are from the top.
Our favorite places to stay in the Dolomites are the refugios. The best one, in our opinion, is the Langkofel Hutte at the base of the Sassolungo massif. You can take the gondola up, walk for just a while to the refugio, spend the night, and then hike back down. Linens are provided and they have an on-site cafe that serves the best soup I've ever eaten! We have also stayed in the towns of Brixen, Klausen, and Bruneck on different trips. Some people like to stay in the high mountain villages but then it takes a while to drive down to get to other parts of the area. We like staying on the main roads so we can get around faster.
I recommend hiking/walking on the Seiser Alm for the views of the many massive peaks in the region. There are still farmers up there raising their cows by hand and handraking the fields - it's like walking in to a previous century. The Drei Zinnen and the Marmolata are must-sees. The whole Val Gardena area is heavenly. The whole region is one of our favorite places on Earth!

I would spend 4 days driving in the Dolomites and 3 days in Lake Como or Lake Garda, but not both. Also, it's not necessary to stay in Milan the night before your departure, unless you really want to visit Pavia. We departed from Milan but stayed in Lake Como the night before and then took a shuttle to the airport early on the morning of our departure.

You will definitely need a car to get around the Dolomites and if you're not comfortable driving a manual shift, then reserve an automatic. My husband did all the driving and had no problems driving in the area but he's very comfortable driving a manual shift car. I recommend using Auto Europe to reserve your car. Their call center is located in Maine so it's very easy to communicate with them. You can pick up your car on your way out of Florence and then drive to the Dolomites. We drove around the Dolomites for 2 days (I wanted to visit the area for a longer period of time but suffer from motion sickness and wasn't sure how I would do on the hairpin curvy roads). I now want to return and spend more time in the region because I loved the Dolomites and scenery so much. We spent one night in Bolzano and one night in Alta Badia/La Villa. We changed hotels only because we didn't want to backtrack at the end of each day due to not knowing if I'd suffer from motion sickness or not but it's really not necessary to change hotels each day. I'd pick a central area and then take day trips every day.

I haven't been to Lake Garda so I can't comment on it but we visited the mid-lake area of Lake Como and really loved it. We stayed in Varenna and took the ferry to Bellagio, Menaggio, etc. Lake Como is really beautiful and I don't think you can go wrong there. We stayed at Albergo Milano in Varenna and also loved it but they book fast. It's unlikely that they'll have any openings for this July but you might contact them and see. Have a wonderful trip.

Don't feel badly about not being able to see everything in one trip. Verona and Lake Como are both part of Rick's favorite 3 - 4 weeks in Italy, but we don't call either one a definite must-see.