Train travel in and out of Lecco, Italy

Are you going to Lecco or to Varenna? If you are going to Varenna you should look up times for Varenna, and that is also what you should book.
If you look up times on www.trenitalia.com you will see that the replacement bus service runs every hour. So you can just buy a ticket Varenna - Malpensa as you would normally do.

So it looks that your trip is possible, apart from the fact that part will be on a coach.

It is very common in Italy to do these works during the summer holiday. The trains are there primarily for the locals, and doing this during the holidays inconveniences less people.

The Winter Olympics are being held in Cortina d’Ampezzo and around the greater Milan region next February. While train track maintenance is often done June 15-September 15 on the Milan -Lecco-Varenna-Colico-Sondrio-Tirano line, this year they started earlier and it is likely the work will extend beyond September 15.
Trenord operates the trains from Milan up to Lake Como and beyond to Sondrio and Tirano. Trenitalia does not operate these trains, but does sell tickets for them. During the track work, trains will only go as far north as Lecco, which is about 25 minutes shy of Varenna on a train. In Lecco, train passengers will have to transfer to waiting buses and it’s the buses that will complete the journey to Varenna and points north. The same thing will happen in reverse for the trip from Varenna to Lecco by bus and then from Lecco to Milan by train.
Your Air B&B has given you wrong information. Transit being limited to 8:15 and 14:15 is simply not the case. There are one-to-two buses EVERY HOUR from 5am to 9 pm scheduled to leave Varenna for Milan Porto Garibaldi station.
If you check Trenitalia as WengenK mentioned or www.TheTrainline.com you will see this and you can buy tickets now for any of dozens of departures. Some journeys on the Milan-Varenna route are scheduled to take 1:19 and some take 1:47.
There also are Trenord trains running from Milan to the town of Como on the southern shore of Lake Como. From the town of Como there are a handful of infrequent ferries taking 2 hours to arrive in Varenna.
You will be able to get from Bolzano to Lecco in 4-5.5 hours because the route is Bolzano-Verona-Milano-Lecco and should be possible to complete solely on trains.

Thank you for your responses.
We eventually are going to Varenna which is where our Airbnb is located but I’m fine with the train ending in Lecco and doing either a bus or a cab to continue on to Varenna.
I like and agree with your responses however I have attempted to book a train from Bolzano to Lecco on Trenord and I’m able to go through the entire process but at the end, when I select my option, it states “trip not available” and it states this on all options that go to Lecco regardless of whether my starting point is Milan or Bolzano.
I continue to experiment with it and learned I need to select Lecco Maggianico station and I’m able to book Bolzano to Lecco Maggianico on Trenitalia but not Trenord.
If I’m missing something, please advise. My mind is twirling at this point.
Thank you,
Jamie

When I look at www.TheTrainline.com it shows dozens and dozens of options to take the train from Bolzano to Varenna-Esino-Perledo. That is the only station they show for Varenna and it is operated by Trenord from Milan. The trains from Bolzano are Italo and Trenitalia high-speed trains. The Trainline will sell you the complete journey combination on its website.

Thank you for not giving up on me and continuing to answer my questions. I do see options on Trainline. I don’t understand why these options are not on the others but I’ll not question it beyond that.
Thank you!
Jamie

Because there are so many different train operators involved ( from Bolzano to Varenna it’s Italo, Trenitalia, OBB and Trenord ) that, for the most part, don’t sell any tickets other than their own. But they all contract with The Trainline to sell their train tickets. So, Trainline is like the supermarket where you can find everything under one roof. That makes it easier to buy your tix without wasting hours trying to search the internet to patch together a series of tickets for a single journey.
The EU broke up the national train company monopolies ( Trenitalia in Italy, Renfe in Spain, Deutsche Bahn in Germany, SNCF in France, etc.). and is forcing them to compete with other train companies. Someday in the future. this compartmentalization of train travel will be streamlined.
We are just not there yet.

This is has actually nothing to do with monopolies being broken up. Trenord is a joint venture of Trenitalia and FNM, and FNM has been around forever. It is just that Lombardia wanted a single contract for its regional trains.

The main problem you are encountering is probably due to you wanting to book your train tickets to far in advance.90% of all issues people from overseas encounter when trying to book train travel are due to just being to early.

If Trenitalia can't curently book you all the way to Varenna then Trainline won't be able to either.

I believe Italotreno would not exist were it not for the EU’s mandates.