Finalizing Itinerary

Hello!

My active, 12 year-old son & I are going to The Dolomites for 5 nights at the beginning of July. We'll be based on Ortisei & I wondered if someone might share top activities to do & great nearby towns to see. We're bringing our bikes & we'd love some easy to medium-difficulty hikes. I don't know much about the gondolas or via ferrata & our hotel hasn't given us any suggestions beyond the local pool.

Also, we have 1 extra day/night before we drive to Milan. Can anyone suggest a great town to visit on the drive down?

Thank you for your advice on my previous post. We have changed our travel plans a little bit and plan to spend 1 full day in Rome before heading down south and would love advice on how to perfect our first time in Rome. We will be arriving at Fiumicino at 5pm on July 28 and will get our rental car at the airport. We will be then driving to Rome and staying at a hotel about a minute away from the Colosseum and plan to leave the car at an overnight car park. Unfortunately, Colosseum will be fully closed on July 29, so we plan to visit on July 30 before leaving, hopefully. Here is what I have planned so far for the day of July 29 (hopefully everything is within a walking distance)

-Starting off our walk from our hotel near the Colosseum to the Piazza Venezia

-Trevi Fountain

-Pantheon, Piazza Navona

-Spanish Steps

-Castel Sant’Angelo

- Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel

-St. Peter’s Basilica

I have a few things we need advice on:

1) What is the best way to get around Rome, should we stick to walking? Should driving around with our rental car be avoided at all costs?

2) Please suggest any restaurants or cafes that you have beloved on Rome trips that we must absolutely visit.

3) Any other tips or places we should include on our itinerary.

We plan to leave Rome in the morning of July 30.

I am a bit lost to what we should do as my parents are not avid walkers but it is very difficult to decide what to do in the limited time we have there. Any advice would be appreciated.

I’m coming in through Milan, picking up a rental car to drive around Piedmont. We fly in/out of Milan and dropping our rental car before a couple days before we fly back to avoid car return stress on the day we fly back.

Instead of heading to the city, it appears Omenga is the same distance from MXP as Milan city center and planning to spend last 2 nights there.

. Any advice on ease of getting a taxi to the airport? Or am i best to just add a day to Piedmont the stay at an airport area hotel the last day? I hate to be in an airport hotel, but not feeling like going into Milan at the end of the trip.

Thoughts?

Hello,

We are visiting the Dolomites next week and will be staying in campings with tent. I e-mailed 5-6 camping places, but they do not take reservations for tents. Anyway, we are only two people with a small tent and car so we should probably be fine with finding places.

In terms of itinerary, can you please share your thoughts and if we are missing something/should include something etc. Any advice will be useful.

Day 1: Driving up from Venice. We are going to base ourselves in a camping near Cofosco for 2-3 days (do not want to assemble/disassemble a tent each day) Probably will arrive around 13:00 - 14:00. Any ideas how to fill this day with some sights/short hikes in the region ? Seiser Alm ?

Day 2: Drive to Val di Funes - St. Magdalena - Adolf Munkel Trail, drive back to Colfosco. Should we include anything else for this day, or this is plenty ?

Day 3: Seceda with the cable car from Ortisei. Doing a loop hike to Pieralonga and Refugio Firenze.

Day 4: Drive to a camping near Cortina. Hike to lake Sorapsis in the afternoon. Should we include something else?

Day 5: Cinque Torri + Gaiu Pass + Falzarego Pass + Castello

Day 6: Tri Cime loop hike + Cadini di Misurina hike.

Day 7: Leaving the region and heading back to Bulgaria with 1 night in Croatia.

I would love to squeeze in Lago di Braies somewhere in the plan, so we are thinking of having 2 nights around Colfosco and 4 nights near Cortina.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions on how we can improve our trip! I am pretty sure that some of the days it will be raining so we have to accommodate and try to have back-up options for rainy weather.

Hi people,

Planning on visiting both Lake Como and then going into northern Lombardy (Chiavenna as a base, maybe), but not sure how to arrange it or how to manage the car rental in the most efficient way. Our rough itinerary so far looks like this:

- Day 1: Coming from Tuscany, arriving at Lake Como around noon or 2/3 PM (overnight in Varenna)

- Day 2: Around Lake Como, maybe visiting Bellagio / Varenna / hiking around the area.

- Day 3: Around Lake Como, maybe visiting Bellagio / Varenna / hiking around the area.

- Day 4: Going from Varenna to Chiavenna, sightseeing around the area

- Day 5: Visiting Soglio (Switzerland) and maybe other small towns close to Chiavenna.

- Day 6: From Chiavenna to Tirano or Pontresina to take the Bernina Express up to Chur, so we might be able to visit some towns enroute to Pontresina/Tirano during the morning as the Bernina Express leaves Tirano at around 2 PM. We will probably go from Chur to Luzern which is our next step for a couple of nights instead of staying in Chur.

I am not worried about the Lake Como leg of the trip, but how would you arrange the trip from Day 4? We weren´t planning to have a car initially because we would do Lake Como and then move into the Ticino (based in Locarno) in Switzerland. However, we discovered how beautiful the area around Chiavenna is and we are now gravitating towards doing that instead of Ticino, before moving into Lucerne (Bernina Express seems to be an interesting option to connect northern tip of Italy (Tirano) with Chur and then going into Luzern for a long but relaxing day).

Big problem is that there doesn´t seem to be a rental car return place that would suit our itinerary without getting into astronomical fees or a lot of unnecessary driving (or returning in Switzerland which also increases fees), any advice on that and how our rough itinerary looks? We would like to keep unnecessary travel as much as possible and minimize super expensive costs for the car rental.

Thank you!

we're departing to Italy tomorrow. brother and sister in our 30s. all this trip was booked pretty last minute so practically nothing is finalized.

we want to start our trip in the area around the 2 locations I mentioned but can't decide which is better (and we're departing to Italy tomorrow evening so time is short to make up our minds).

we'll be arriving at Malpensa Airport at night (booked a hotel near the airport) and want to go to either Como or Lecco fir about 2 night before returning to Milan.

we'll be using public transport for the entire trip.

as far as transport goes, it doesn't make much difference since the traveling time from the airport to either of them seems similar.

Lecco was my original plan since it seems there are some hikes around which is something that appeals to us.

looking for hikes around como proves more difficult since all search results are about the entire lake como and that's not helping considering we'll be using public transport.

I've read comments here that Lecco is not that attractive of a town. on the other hand it might be less crowded than Como.

I was thinking maybe taking a day and going from Lecco to Varenna and taking the ferry from there to Bellagio and Menaggio.

I can basically the same from Como as well.

but again, can't find any real info on hiking from Como city specifically.

bottom line, I'm confused. I sometimes find that the "prettiest" town us not always the best to stay in.

can you help with any kind of input?

Hello all,

We are planning to visit around Lake Como starting from tomorrow (Wednesday - 28 Jul), and we will stay in a hotel near Lecco. However, we just saw in the news that there is a massive flood in the Como area (west shore) that caused many roads to be closed, and it will rain more until Wednesday evening.

Unfortunately, we have a non-refundable booking, and our hotel told us that there is no flood whatsoever around Leko. Is there anyone in the Como area who could tell how bad the situation is? And in case of a weather-related reason like this, is there any way of getting a refund on a non-refundable booking?

Thank you.

Group of 7 including 3 teenagers traveling at the end of June 2022. Flying into Venice and spending 2.5 days there and will finish the trip with 4 days in Rome. Half of the group has been to Italy before, 1st trip to Europe for the other half.

One member of the group wants to meet up with a friend in Milan for a day.

Thinking it might be nice to spend a few days at Lake Como for these reasons -

Would be an easy trip back and forth to Milan for the friend meet up.

Nice relaxation time with swimming, boating, laying out by the lake etc.

Lake Como is gorgeous!

If you were traveling from VCE to Rome and had 3 or 4 days AND needed to spend 1 day in Milan where would you go? Am I on the right track or should we be looking elsewhere?

We are headed to Italy in September for a wedding in Amalfi. We are staying in Rome for 2 days before heading down there and we’ll stay there for 4 nights as she has 3 events planned. We are leaving Amalfi on the 14th back to Rome for another 3 days before we fly out. My question is there a day trip recommendations on our way back to Rome? We are planning on taking the ferry to Salerno and than train to Rome. We will have our luggage with us. Any recommendations are appreciated.

I'll be flying from the USA into MXP, landing at 7:30 AM in a few weeks on Thursday. Flight out is Saturday at around 5:00 PM from MXP to France. I mostly want to go to Lake Como, but I was hoping to also see Milan city if possible. I will be using public transport and prefer to stay somewhere that isn't Como city.

If anyone has experience, can you please give some advice on what would be the best way to do this? I was thinking either go straight to Milan and get an early train Friday morning to the lake and then straight to airport Saturday, or go straight to Lake Como and then Milan either late Friday night or super early Saturday and walk around for a few hours before my flight. I am open to skipping Milan if the schedule is too tight - I have already taken pictures in front of many churches and fountains in Europe, and I also don't have interest in museums.

I guess my concerns are using public transportation for such a long trip with a lot of transfers after landing in Milan - I could be held up in immigration for hours and maybe the trains aren't frequent? And also using public transport for a long trip on the same day as my flight out - if I don't make a connection, I could end up stuck somewhere!

Appreciate any insight you can give!

Thank you :)