Originally Posted by Perche

Whatever you do, don't rent a car. There is no parking in most towns at Lakes Como and Maggiore. To get to both places costs abut three euros on a local train from Milan, and takes 45 minutes. Once you are on the lake, you take a ferry From place to place to visit the sites, or a train.

Headline news in Italy as mentioned, Switzerland has removed the ceiling it had on how much higher the franc could go, vs the euro. This is catastrophe, threatening to put some large banks out of business. In other words if you were ok paying 20 dollars for a sandwich and 10 dollars for a soda at a fast food place, travel to Switzerland just got even more expensive.

Originally Posted by PWMTrav

If you're doing this trip off-peak, the best mileage redemption value is going to be an AA off-peak coach award - 20k each way (40k RT) from the US to Europe. Off peak is roughly October 15-May 15.

However, if you're flying during peak season, you may look into a domestic award from your airport to JFK, and then a paid ticket JFK-MXP. That's often the cheapest way to Italy because of the competition on that route (American, Delta/Alitalia and Emirates).

I know you said you want to fly business, but I'm throwing out the 40k coach option because it's a really great rate and quite honestly, Italy isn't that long a flight.

If you want to go business, you probably still need a positioning flight to an east coast gateway. If you're light on miles, Alitalia is 80k RT in business, but with fuel surcharges. If Delta saver space is available, you might score DL XXX-JFK and AZ JFK-MXP on one ticket for 80k RT. Unless Chase UR regains Korean as a transfer partner, the rest of the game is going to be 100-125k miles per ticket RT in business.

Originally Posted by Perche

You don't want to stay there on your vacation, even if it's free. Lake Como, as I'm sure you know, is an upside down Y. Down at the bottom of one arm of the Y is the city of Como. It's an industrial, disaster zone, with no beauty. Actually, the Sheraton is taking over an already existing hotel in the City of Como, and it is not in a nice area. If you are going there for business and you need a business hotel, and you are not going there for pleasure, and your company is paying for it anyway, then you go where they send you. Staying in the City of Como for a trip to Como, I can't overstate this enough, at the risk of sounding as if I'm exaggerating, would be a disaster.

There is a nice old Roman wall that is interesting in Como, but that's it. As you get closer to the Lake, and the hotel they are converting to a Sheraton is not close to Lake Como, it's just in the industrial sprawl of the city of Como, you enter into tourism central. It's just not worth traveling to Europe for it.

For Como, think of the point where the three legs of the Y meet. That point is Bellagio, about a good hour away from the City of Como by boat, and that's a good thing. Bellagio is the most popular place, with all of the options, from dining, seeing sights, great beauty, food. Maybe not art at any lake, but there are great villas that you can visit, and they are full of art, and are beautiful just for the way their gardens are.

The only problem with Bellagio is that as the fulcrum point of the Y, it gets crowded in the summer. Varenna is a three minute ferry ride away. It doesn't get crowded. There would be no place to put the people, so it can't get crowded. It also has a small beach. Also, the train from Milan stops at Varenna. You get off the train and walk 20 yards, and you are there. To get to Bellagio you have to take the train to Varenna, then take the ferry to Bellagio (Sure, you can get to Bellagio in other ways, including by car or boat, but that would really mess up life.) Just take the train from Milano Centrale to Varenna, if Como is the Lake you do wind up choosing.

When you want to go to Bellagio, the ferry is always just a few minutes wait, and it's just a few minutes to there.

With Bellagio at the mid-point of the Y, and Varenna just up the side a few minutes, take a ferry across the lake, and you are are Menaggio. Another jewel of a city. Day trip Bellagio, day trip Menaggio. And all of the cities are at your access by ferry. All except for the industrial city of Como, and the towns going down the right side of the inverted Y once you get past Fiumelatte in Lecco, are worth visiting on day trips by ferry. If you go up to the tip of the inverted Y, you will be at Colico, which actually has a regular, large, sandy beach. It's not the nicest town, but it's a real beach where you can spread out towels and sun bath, have a gelato, then take the train back.

You said you like hiking, but not too extreme. There is a castle in Varenna, Castello Vezia. In the USA things are made a landmark and considered old if they were built in 1890. They become a historical landmark. I think this castle was built by Romans around the year 50. Any basic hiker can make it there. There are no roads but you can easily walk to it, look down at the Lake, and across to Switzerland.

There is a forest path from that Castle that goes all the way up to Colico at the tip of the Y. It has a name, and there are signs, but I don't remember the name. I'm a marathoner, so I ran it. I don't know the mileage, but it was very far, I'll guess about 15 very hilly miles. On that path I came across a number of small towns with no roads, no access, they'd just been like that for hundreds of years. They'd all have a place to stop and have a coffee, a glass of wine, or even something to eat. And these were villages consisting of maybe 10-20 buildings, and no way to get to them except by hiking. Nothing had changed for centuries

Since it's just a poorly marked path, I got lost. There was a boy of maybe 10-12 years, out there in the middle of nowhere that I came across, and I asked him where the path was. He said he'd show me, and started to run with me. After about ten minutes, his mother, who must have just sent him down the mountain to the store, started yelling for him, "where are you," it was like a swiss yodel, but in Italian, and he answered back with his own yodel saying, "I'm taking this lost man back to the path." He got me back to the path, I finished the run to Colico, had a couple of gelati, laid on the beach and took in the sun, then took the train back to Varenna. Quite a day.

Your own unique experiences such as this are what you should be seeking, and you've already started out well by choosing the Lakes in July. Don't go to Italy as a sightseer. Italy is not a museum, it's a unique culture and state of mind. Go there and set yourself up to live it and to feel it.

My wife has run a marathon, and she ran about half of the way, before I got lost. There are options to go down the hill and get to any number of cities where you can take the train back, and she did that.

In sum, for Como, you have the trio of Bellagio, Varenna, Menaggio, and branch out from there, but don't stay in the city of Como, even for free, unless you are on a business trip. Menaggio is great, but it's on the other side of the lake. It has a great, famous hotel, but you will be having to cross the Lake to get to Bellagio, and generally, you will find that you will be spending most of your time in Bellagio.

Lago Maggiore, the other option is also a great place. I know far less about it. I go to Como for vacation. But when I worked in Torino the students would take me to the Maggiore to escape the heat. There isn't a lot of air conditioning in Italy, and during summer weekends people tend to head to the beach. I don't even remember the town we would go to, except that we would go to the southside, and that we did cross over to the Borromeo Islands in the middle of the lake once because they insisted that I see, and it was worth it. Stresa was recommended to you. I've never been there, but it is certainly famous for being beautiful.

Lake Garda, I've only seen passing by on a train. I'm sure it's nice, but as I already mentioned, it's not so much the lake, it's about the city. You can go to Lake Como, stay in the city of Como, and you will not like it. There are also cities on the lake that are too small to enjoy. Bellagio, Varenna, Menaggio, then branch out.

You are going to have a great time. The only way this could be screwed up is if you read up on it and decide you have to visit both Lago di Como and Lago Maggiore, and you don't stay put. Sort of like people who go to Italy and spend two days in Venice, two days in Florence, three days in Rome, then go home, having no experiences, just pictures.

Originally Posted by travelmom4

Thank you for the flight tip. DFW is relatively easy for us so that might be an option.

I would love to hear your impressions of Stresa if you are so inclined.