Need some assistance in planning - Italy

Varenna ia a wonderful place. Stay there before Venice. Another option is Vicenza and yet a third is Verona. Both of the latter are on the train line to Venice from Milano and are rather small and relaxing.
Spend as little time in Milano as you can-- it is not worth anybody's while.

Hazel - You'll have a great trip! Getting there a few days ahead of time will allow you to enjoy the RS tour all the more. So I'd urge you not too be too ambitious about where to start in Europe. You need to allow for the travel time to Venice. You can find train schedules on trenitalia.it (For Italy) or bahn.de (for Europe).

Because you're going to be in cities on the tour - and you'll be there in October - I have a suggestion:

Fly into Milan (Malpensa)and go to one of the lakes from there. Como is very popular and you can find lots of suggestions in Rick's guidebooks. Then you can easily train to Venice on Monday.

I agree with Doug. From Milan it is about one hour by train to Varenna on Lake Como. Spend a day or two there and then return to Milan for a three-hour train ride to Venice. If you get a hotel room in Varenna rather than one of the other L. Como towns, you will be a 5-10 min walk from the train station. I think trains run about hourly. Trust Rick on hotel info for Varenna.

You will be getting enough of Italy on the RS Tour, so think about starting your trip in Zurich & seeing a bit of Switzerland. You may not find a non-stop from the Bay Area, but you could leave Thursday morning & go to a hub city (like Atlanta for Delta or Chicago for United) & then get a non-stop night flight to Zurich. A couple days in a place like Lucerne might be a good choice. From Zurich or Lucerne it's about 7 hrs on trains to Venice.

I agree with most of the other posters - heading to Lake Como for a few nights would be a great idea. You can relax and get over jet lag (and eat gelato!) before the big tour begins, and there are lots of neat small towns in the area to explore. Beautiful scenery and small towns - I'd go with that plan!

I too think the suggestion of flying into Milan and then taking the train to Lake Como sounds great. However if you think you will have your fill of Italy with your RS Tour and would like to try something different how about flying into Munich. From there you could visit Bavarian/Tyrolean areas and then head to Venice.

Hi Hazel, I can never get enough of Italy so I would definitely spend the extra days in Italy. Amsterdam and Prague are wonderful, but save them for your next trip. There are just so many wonderful places to see in Italy. I think the idea of flying into Milan and taking the train to Varenna is a good one. That would be a very relaxing way to start your trip. It is a lovely lakeside town and you can take the boats on the lake to other nearby towns. There are other places that you could stop on the train line between Milan and Venice (Verona and Padua). You could also go directly to Venice, settle in, and take day trips from Venice to nearby cities like Verona, Padua, Ravenna, etc. Another option would be to fly into Rome and then take the train to a town between Rome and Venice. Get a good Italy guidebook and check out the many places to see there.

Hazel, If I were you, I'd fly into Munich. See Munich and take the Bavarian Pass (train) to Salzburg. Hit the highlights in Salzburg. Then take a night train to Venice. Make sure to get a sleeper car of some sort. It's a little more expensive but you save the cost of a hotel. and don't worry about having to switch trains in the middle of the night. When I went in 2005 there was one car that made the overnight trip. The train stopped in Vilach, Austria to exchange cars. The railway attendants changed the car to the proper train while we slept, so we didn't have to wake up unless we wanted to.

I've done this trip and it's wonderful. Spend Friday night in Munich. Then Saturday night in Salzburg. Then take the Sunday night train to Venice.

Thank you to everyone who posted! You have given me some ideas to work with now - though I still have a year to plan this.

If you think of anymore ideas, please feel free to post them! =)

Thanks again,
Hazel

Another lake option would be Lake Garda. It is directly on the rail line from Milan to Venice so the transportation would be less complicated. You could take the train from Milan to Desenzano and from there care catch a ferry up the lake to one of the small towns - we really liked Limone. The scenery is spectacular.

Hazel - just factor travel time into your planning. You're going to be on the go once you join the RS tour and the two days you're planning in advance give you an ideal time to recover from jet lag. I think going too far from Northern Italy would find you spending most of the days on trains. I think a night train would be exhausting - there's been a lot of discussion of the pros and cons on this board.

Hope I'm not being too negative. Enjoy your planning!

Zurich, Lucerne, Munich and Salzburg sound wonderful!!!

I wish I had a month to play with. Keep all the ideas coming everyone. Thank you!!!!!

Nope - not negative at all! I appreciate all the input.

Stay away from Night Trains in ITALY period! You can read our post here in Graffiti Wall section. Hopefully you will learn from our very bad experiance. Good luck with your trip.