Travel in Dec/january

What ideas do you already have? Do you have a guide book?

Have you been to Padua? It's only an hour by train from Venice and worth a couple of days. What are your interests?

How about Ljubljana Slovenia

That time of the year is rather cold in Italy.
I would rather be at the Maldives, but if you want to stay in the area, I would visit cities around there (Verona, Padua), and even spend few days in Florence.

Vicenza is also nice. It feels smaller and more laid-back than Padua, but I think Padua is a better base since there is more to do.

I hope you are spending more than 1 day in Venice. Bologna is pretty close, kind of low key and you can day trip to Padua, Ravenna, Modena, Ferrara, even Florence, and more. Extra bonus - many of the streets a lined with colonnades so if it's raining, you can stay dry.. . .except for crossing the street.

Thanks.

I will be in Venice from Dec 28th to January 1st with some friends, They leave for home on the 1st and I will travel alone until the 5th. I like history, culture, talking to people and trying to improve my Italian. I have been learning Italian for about 8 years now and I can write, read and understand well but my oral skills are quite poor. Every time I travel in Italy it improves a bit. This is my first time traveling alone in Italy. My initial thought was to take a train to Verona and then take day trips to Padua and Vicenza then return to Venice to fly back home. Would Bologna be a better base? I do use Rick Steves travel books quite a bit when I travel in Italy.

Thanks again.

Last October I visited the Veneto and used Vicenza as my base. It's a short train ride to either Padova or Verona and trains are frequent. What I liked about Vicenza is that it's smaller and more intimate than the other two cities and not frequented by as many tourists so the crowds are locals for the most part. Very short walk from the train station to hotels and hotel prices were less than in the other cities.