Venice

Christine,
Should the folks on the forum assume that you are flying into the Venice airport?

Of the "five or six days" touring...how many days do you wish to spend in Venice pre tour?
Gene

Hi Christine, we stayed in Verona 3 days prior to joining an Italy RS tour and really enjoyed that city. It's an easy 1 1/2 hour train from Venice (take the faster train vs. the slow one). We purchased Verona Cards and explored several sites in town along with just enjoying the piazzas, parks, etc. We stayed at Hotel Aurora and had a balcony overlooking Piazza Erbe.

We liked Udine and Trieste, cities north of Venice. Both are very scenic and within an hour of Venice.

Christine, it would be helpful for us to know which RS tour you will be on, so we will know what other locations are already on your schedule. Also, what are your prime interests, such as art and architecture, history, food and wine, outdoor scenery and activities, etc. And, do you expect to rent a car, or do you want to avoid that. Most Italian regions and towns from Rome north are within a few hours of Venice, either by train or by car, so your possibilities are very numerous and diverse.

Day 1 - Fly into Milan (2 nts)
Day 2 - Milan sights - Duomo, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, La Scala, Last Supper
Day 3 - Train to Verona (3 nts)
Day 4 - Excursion to Padova - Scrovegni Chapel, St Anthony's Basilica
Day 5 - Excursion to Vicenza - Villa Rotunda, Basilica Palladiana, Teatro Olimpico
Day 6 - Train to Venice

Christine, when we did this we flew into Milan (direct flights from US), and took the train to Varenna on Lake Como, for a few days. Then we went back to Milan for a day, and on to Venice. It was a good way to relax and adjust before the tour.

We will be taking the My Way: Italy in 13 days tour. Our interest are architecture and historical sites as well as quaint towns and scenery. We planned on flying into Venice but as we have not purchase our plane tickets, we have other options.

Day 1 - Fly into Venice, bus to Padova (3 nts)
Day 2 - Padova sights - Scrovegni Chapel, St Anthony's Basilica
Day 3 - Excursion to Vicenza - Villa Rotunda, Basilica Palladiana, Teatro Olimpico
Day 4 - Train to Verona (2 nts) - Piazza delle Erbe, Arena di Verona, Basilica of San Zeno, Scaliger Tombs
Day 5 - Excursion to Mantova - Palazzo Ducale, Palazzo del Te
Day 6 - Train to Venice to join Rick Steves My Way® Italy in 13 Days Tour
https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/italy/my-way-italy

I have been researching how to spend 5 nights on the way to Venice in July 2016, and I decided to fly to Milan (1 night), train to Varenna on Lake Como (3 nights) and train to Venice (1 night) the day before our cruise leaves. Sounds like what Stan recommended too! I have been to Verona (in winter) and enjoyed it, and that is close to Venice too, as someone else mentioned.
Have a great trip.

Thank you for all your suggestions. We are now thinking of flying into Milan and renting a car. We think it will give us flexability.

Christine, my first RS tour was the My Way Italy in October 2013. It's a great tour, and May should be an excellent time of year as well. Of course on the My Way tour you will need to choose and sometimes plan out your daily sites, activities and meals other than breakfast. My experience was that you could pretty much "go with the flow" in Varenna, Cinque Terre, and Assisi, but in Venice, Florence and Rome, there are so many outstanding possibilities that you really need to do some advance research and planning to make the best use of your time. Some of the best sites require advance timed reservations, or you might want to take some day tours with companies like Walks of Italy, Context Tours, Dark Rome and others. Some of the sites themselves also have very good guided tours, generally for an extra fee. Guiding in Italy is a real profession, and official guides are thoroughly trained, very well informed, generally very personable and enthusiastic, and can often add a lot to your appreciation of world-class sites, beyond wandering around with a guide book or even audio tour. In terms of your time in Venice, and extra days before the tour begins, I will mention these possibilities, others can and have mentioned others: (1) I certainly think you should plan to spend a day in Venice out on the lagoon, visiting Murano, Burano and rural Torcello, where Venice was born. Murano is very commercial, until you walk beyond the main commercial area. Burano is very picturesque wandering the colorful residential areas, and is known for excellent food, especially including fish or seafood. Torcello, very near Burano, is very rural and you walk to a very old church complex. All of this, including one or even two meals, would take pretty much a whole day. (2) As others have mentioned, Padua and Verona are both excellent stops, either to spend nights or as day trips. Between them, I hear that Vicenza is a nice visit too, especially if you like Palladio's architecture. (3) you could take some days to explore the Dolomites, or Lake Garda, lots of possibilities there. (4) you could head to Bologna, a busy mid-sized city most known for its excellent cuisine, and near there I loved the small, flat city of Ravenna, with many of the most wonderful ancient mosaics spread over 4 or 5 different sites, really special; (5) In general, I find Milano the least enjoyable of the places I've visited in Italy, others differ on that, but I would not spend your first day or days there, and would not fly in there unless it was just to move quickly to some other location by train or car, but remember you will be jet-lagged on arrival, and most say it is best to spend your first day or two in a more relaxed place. I hope you will also be spending at least a couple extra days in Rome at the end, there is SOOOOO much to see and do there. In my case, I spent extra days in Rome, and then another week moving through Orvieto in Umbria, and through a few stops in Tuscany. Enjoy!

Christine, If you fly into Milan consider Lake Como -- It's a great place to get over a long flight and possible jet lag. Renting a car will give you flexibility, but to my way of thinking it's just not necessary. All of the places people have mentioned visiting before the tour are well served by trains. Easypeasy and one less hassle.

I agree with either Cinque Terre or the Lake Area. I also recommend that you go to Venice a few days before your tour begins. We just returned from the 10day RS Venice, Florence, Rome Tour and we arrived in Venice 3days before our tour began and we enjoyed our 3 days on our own there better than our time there with the tour - there is SO much to see and explore in Venice. We stayed at a fantastic B&B in a non touristy area, very easy to the Vaporetto and it was an amazing time. While sipping a cappuccino in St.Marks square is not to be missed, the non touristy sections of Venice, where the people live, are so pretty.

after spending two months in Italy, Venice by far is the place to see. No cars, skate boards, roller skates, bicycles ...totally pedestrian only. But only past late October otherwise it is a zoo.

I have rented a car at VCE airport and driven to San Vito a Tagliamente. Stayed there several nights visiting the town visiting local towns easy driving Used GPS in the car went to Portograro where the city center is a World Heritage site. On our way back to VCE went to the beach and a winery along the way