Travel to Venice, and maybe one more place?

Where are you flying in and out of?

Either Florence or Rome would be fine if you haven’t already been

Another option is closer to Venice
Bologna and/or Verona
Both have lots of day trip opportunities

Florence is long ways. Lake Como or Milan would be a more convenient choice. And it is easy to come home from Milan.

Consider Parma or Modena. Easy to get to from Venice. Cute places with great food! Little to no mass tourism there so a big change from Venice.

I have always enjoyed the area between Venice and (including) Milan. Padova, Vicenza and Verona are all great places and easily reachable from Venice. There is really no wrong answer as to where you spend your time as long as you have the "I will return again" mindset. Good luck and have fun!

We haven’t decided. We could fly into Venice and out of Venice. We know we have the apartment for one week only. It kind of depends, as we only want to do one stop out of Orlando or Tampa. We usually fly out of Orlando and last year we flew to Naples in and out, through Newark with United. Newark was a nightmare, but we may have to do it again. Maybe if flying in and out of Venice makes it easier, we would do that and train to another place. Thank you for all the suggestions and I like the idea of something non-touristy, but good eating, and good wine. We can always go again I like that idea!

Have you checked R/T out of ATL ?

For food and wine, I would do Verona as a day trip from Venice (1 hour by train) and then spend your 4 nights in Bologna and day trip to Ferrara for a different cuisine. Or to Modena or Parma for a similar cuisine in smaller places than Bologna. (I can hear the people of Parma and Modena strenuously objecting to my saying "similar"! Of course, they have their own cuisine!) You could even day trip to Ravenna for a different cuisine and also some mosaics.

From Bologna, you can either fly home from the Bologna airport or take the train from there to Milan. The problem with flying home from either Venice or Bologna is that the flights tend to be quite early in the morning --- you'll have more choice of later flights leaving from Milan, although you will still probably have to spend the night either in Milan or near/at the Milan airport (which is an hour from Milan's central train station).

Lake Como is easily reached by train, then you can train back to Venice or one hour to Milan to go home.

Flying into Venice is ok. Flying out, however, can be a problem depending on departure time. Perhaps fly into Venice and our from your last stop. That also eliminates wasting time back tracking.

I appreciate everybody’s input for our trip! Thanks so much. I think we will stay in Bologna and then visit from there, Parma and Moderna. I like the idea of seeing Verona from Venice. It looks like United will fly us through Newark on the way up, which is not too bad. I just don’t want to go through Newark, when it comes to customs as they don’t have enough people. Last time it took us 2 1/2 hours and we barely made our flight home to Orlando. This way it looks like we willI have a connection in Frankfurt, which would work.

I really like having a later flight coming home too. So thank you so much for that suggestion. Don’t like getting up in the dark lol.

If you are in Bologna for a few days, Florence is only 38 minutes away from there by train.

I didn’t realize Florence was so close by train. Definitely will add that to the plan. Thank you!

And if it works to fly out of Bologna, it is a smaller airport that is very easy to navigate and easy to get to either by taxi or from the train station. Plus you might have a chance at a mid morning departure rather than early as in Venice.

Looks like we will be going to Venice first, for a week to an apartment. I don’t know if it’s better to go to the train station from Venice onto Bologna. We will be staying in the San Polo area of Venice. Would it be better to take a train to bologna or a bus? Then we will fly out of Bologna back to Orlando. Thanks for everyone’s recommendations so far! Would love to hear any recommendations for bologna if anybody has a B&B they like, hopefully with breakfast and Internet in Bologna.

There are direct trains to Bologna that only take 1 1/2 hrs (ish). There are frequent buses, but they will take a bit longer

We are definitely going to take the train and save time. Thanks so much for answering so quickly.