ajandraschell

Hello all,

My wife and I will be in Italy and France JFK-MXP 5/8-5/21. This will be our first time together in Europe, and we'd like it to be as stress-free as possible, if possible. Haha We plan on traveling by train from our starting point in Milan, day tripping (or spending a night or two) to Lake Como, train to Venice, train to Rome (stop in Florence?), then fly to Paris 5/16 or 17, and finally, fly back to Milan 5/20 or 21.
questions:
Thoughts about the itinerary of places to go to with less than 2 weeks in Europe?
Are there any sales, promo codes, coupons currently for paid rides or how do I go about transferring MR or Avios to get award seats with Eurostar?
Is standard seating comfortable enough for each destination ride? My wife and I are used to coach on planes as we are also frugal with points, but I wonder what other people's experiences are.
Is there a big difference in amenities etc in award or paid pricing with each tier? Best to just do standard?
With the transportation time and keeping in mind our limited time in Europe, should we cut some fat out or is our itinerary doable?
This will definitely not be our last time in Europe, but we'd love to make the best of it.

Thanks!

stut

Hi ajandraschell,

Looking at your itinerary, it seems to be:

Milan - Como - Venice - Florence - Rome - Paris - Milan.

so your trains are basically Italian domestic services. To clarify, there are trains that were known as Eurostar Italia, now generally known by other names (e.g. Le Frecce - Frecciarossa, Frecciargento, Frecciabianca).

This thread covers the Eurostar services linking London with Paris and Brussels only.

So, what I'll do is split out these posts and move your question over to the Italy forum. Please continue to follow the topic over there.

stut
Moderator
UK & Ireland

Perche

If you are leaving JFK on 5/8 you arrive to MXP 5/9 you have to travel back to Milan on 5/16. That means you have 7 nights to spend in Italy if I understand your post. You want to experience Lake Como, Venice, Rome, and possibly Florence in that time, plus spend the obligatory night before in Milan? Five cities in 7 nights is not possible.

You mention that this is the first, but not the last time you will be visiting Europe. If that is the case, why do it this way? You won't have the time to experience any of those places.

Lakes like Como, Garda, Massacciucoli, Maggiore, Orta, are magical places. They are for travel connoisseurs. Gorgeous alpine lakes ringed with small, peaceful, picturesque villages, with ancient leaning towers, churches, castles, hiking trails, outdoor opera, music, fresh, great food, surrounded by jaw dropping mountains, generally no crowds, and minimal tourists.

Day-tripping to Lake Como doesn't make sense. It doesn't even make sense to go there for only one night just to check into a hotel at 3PM when check-in is allowed, and check out at 11AM the next day, when check out is required. During those brief hours you will not have experienced anything about what Lake Como is about. At most, you will maybe have some photos documenting that you were present. The saddest part is, you will then say to yourself, "I've done Lake Como," and it will sink to the bottom of your to-do-list and you will probably never go back, and will never experience one of the best places that Europe has to offer. Why not save the Lake Como region for when you can dedicate a proper amount of time to experience it?

Trying to stuff in most of the top sites in Italy in seven nights is like a person sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner and trying to eat the whole turkey in seven bites. It's may be technically doable if you force it, but it's not the best way to enjoy the holiday.

What can one learn about Venice in 1-2 days? Nothing.

You have to see the main sites, Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge (which by the way, is currently undergoing reconstruction and is largely closed and covered with scaffolding right now, but will probably be OK when you get there), and cross them off of your list.

Once those two sites have been seen then it is time to explore Venice. If that is all that you can see because it will already be time for you to leave to "do" the next town, then you will have experienced nothing of Venice. When you get home if someone asks you, "How was Venice?," all you will be able to say is, "I don't know. Piazza San Marco is very crowded, but I didn't actually get to see the City of Venice." Because of its architecture and location Venice is beautiful like no other city on earth. But you can't get to see that in 1-2 days.

If you spend one night in Lake Como, one night in Venice, that leaves 5 days to experience Rome and Florence, minus the time spent in train travel from place to place (it only makes sense to do the Italian part of this itinerary by train). You cannot experience Florence and Rome in only five nights.

I didn't use the words, "do Como, do Rome, do Venice, do Florence." I personally don't believe that you, "do" a city unless your interest is to say, "Been there, done that, have a photo to prove it." You "do" a gelato, but a city is not a gelato. You travel to a place to experience what it has to offer, not just to say you've been there.

People often "do" Italy that way, as in "Let's do a pizza." However, you will not be able to say that you experienced what Italy has to offer by rushing through seven nights in five different cities; Lake Como, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Milan.

KLouis

Perche's answer is, like usual, to the point and it covers almost every aspect that you'd like to have covered concerning your itinerary. Let me only add that if you take a Freccia train between the big cities, the regular seats are Ok (not worse than coach in a "normal" airline) and the business class is, well, a little better than that. I usually don't travel business or higher than that. The seats on the Milano-Como train will be fine for the short trip (if you decide to go to Como, that is).

LowlyDLsilver

Perche offered some sage advice upthread.

We spent almost 3 weeks in Italy last year, saw Sorrento and the surrounding area, Florence, Rome, and Venice - all "somewhat" in that we hit the high points only. We always strive to see more of less, but at points (cinque terre) we broke our own rule and the result was disappointing.

Italy is best seen slowly on foot rather than rapidly through a train window. You would do well to seriously trim your itinerary.

slawecki

the last time i did train travel in italy, we had 3 choices:
eurostar,(ES) high speed and expensive
inter city(IC) both first and second class. almost as fast as the es, and less than half the price.
locals(forgot the name), but very slow.(take about 4x the es or ic.)

look into IC's. bring food and wine. the trip from bologna to venice adds less than 30min to the trip. first class is usually empty. the seats are huge. great way to travel.

a number of the train stations require going down a long flight, and then back up to the train tracks.(venice does not).

KLouis

I can't compare the ES to the Freebie of today (no data), but my son took an intercity direct from Milano to to Terentola (close to Perugia) last week. Departure at ~12:30 pm arrival around 7:30. Using the freccia rossa to Firenze and then a regional, it would have taken almost 3 hours less including the time for the connection! It would have cost 20 Euro more, though.