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Ten days in northern italy

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I’m looking at a trip to northern Italy next April— likely including Venice, Verona, and Varenna. I picked Varenna in part because it’s a great place from which to take a day trip up into the Swiss mountains via the Burina Express. But I’m still flexible!

Our priorities are beauty, history, art, good food, and walkable historic downtowns. We had so much fun in the Swiss alps that I’d love to revisit the mountains even briefly if possible.

Questions:

Is there a good way to take a trip into the Dolomites for a couple days from that area, and is it worth the trip in April? Would you choose that over a Swiss train ride? Would you trade off time in any of those towns for a trip onto the mountains?

In what order would you travel to each venue? They’re sort of in a straight line but also seem close enough that you could fly in and out of Venice… or Milan, though we are less interested in the bigger city experience…

Posted by
3303 posts

Here are some towns to consider…last fall we flew into Venice and home from Milan. It was a one month-long trip journey, we didn’t rent a car but used bus and train travel between the cities. We included Treviso, Bassano del Grappa, Chioggia, Padova, Mantua, Cremona and Turino. It was such a great trip! Except for Turin, these were all new destinations for us. Maybe one or more of these would fit your itinerary. We would return to any one of them again!

Posted by
195 posts

Burina Express??

If you dropped Verona - the most overrated and underwhelming place I've ever been, full of people who thought Romeo and Juliet were real - you could do a good tour staring at Varenna and still include the Bernina Express. Take that from Tirano to Samedan (or any regional train on the same route) then change to a train to Zernez. From Zernez there are hourly Swiss Post buses over the Ofenpass to Mals in Italy which is around where the Alps become the Dolomites - so stay in Bozen (very nice walkable downtown) and you could have your couple of days there. The Mals-Bozen train ride may be partly in the dark in April. And there should be a direct fast train from there to Venice when you want to move on.

Posted by
1171 posts

You don't mention where you are arriving and departing from which makes creating a travel circuit that makes sense somewhat more challenging. If you are flying into Venice for example, you can catch the Cortina Express bus to Cortina d'Ampezzo from the airport parking lot and in two hours you are in the Dolomites. The Cortina Express buses then go on to the Corvara are farther west. In April local buses may or may not be running yet through the Grodner Pass to the ValGardena. That is late in the ski season and the pass has a chance of avalanches sometimes. Otherwise local SudTirol buses go throughout the province and can take you through Val Gardena all the way to Bolzano/Bozen, where you can catch a train north (towards Innsbruck) or south (towards Verona). Then add your other stops. If you are arriving in Milan you can reverse the circuit from Bolzano and end up back in Venice to continue your trip.
https://www.suedtirol.info/en/en

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