Originally Posted by
whynotniwot
My wife and I have booked airfare to MXP on 16 October returning 29/10. We are thinking of heading to Tuscany for the first part of the trip and then spending time on Lake Como the 2nd half.
As for Como, again I am thinking train instead of car. Train to Verrana seems doable. Ferry is what I am thinking for transport around the lake.
We are also open to a side trip to Venice. Not sure we would want to do more then a day trip there.
Thanks in advance for any answers/suggestions.
A few quick answers; I am a huge fan of visiting Italy during the off season. However, the season at Lake Como finishes around the end of September. It's in the mountains a few miles from Switzerland. It starts getting too cold to enjoy a lake, and the hotels and restaurants start shutting down.
If Lago di Como is a must for you, think of spending the first half of your vacation there, not the second half, because the later you go after September 30th the worse it will be because more and more places will start shutting down for the season.
For Lago di Como, train and ferry is the only way to go if you want convenience and simplicity.
For Venice, if you only want to do a day trip you may want to skip it altogether. It's worth so much more than that. If you are a day tripper whose only goal is to walk around Piazza San Marco and see the Rialto Bridge, in my opinion it is not worth it to go at all.