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MelP Feb 4, 2018 7:21 pm

First trip to Italy - itinerary feedback
 
Just booked an award flight on Delta for Italy! Will be there October 14-28. Initial impetus is seeing U2 in Milan - have ticket for one show and they might put on one more I would go to. But I am making this a real vacation. I am in the very early stages of planning but am finding that I probably need to make an accommodations commitment for Venice very soon. I've sketched out this itinerary - does this look OK?

Sun Oct 14 – arrive Milan, wander city
Mon Oct 15 – Milan, Turin?, show
Tues Oct 16 – Milan, wander, show, if no show maybe Cinque Terre day trip?
Weds Oct 17 – Milan, tour Lake Como
Thurs, Oct 18 Go to Venice early
Fri Oct 19 – Venice
Sat Oct 20 – Leave early for Verona, continue to Florence
Sun Oct 21 – Florence
Mon Oct 22 – Florence
Tues Oct 23 – Florence, Siena day trip?
Weds Oct 24 – Rome
Thurs Oct 25 – Rome
Fri Oct 26 – Rome (Pompeii day trip?)
Sat Oct 27 – Rome
Sun Oct 28 – Go home!

Does this seem like a good plan? All my travel will be by train. This will be a solo trip (I am female), and my budget is pretty tight - looking to average 100usd-80eur/night or less for accommodation - any recommendations for neighborhoods and places to stay in these cities would be much appreciated!

firecracker725 Feb 4, 2018 7:42 pm


Originally Posted by MelP (Post 29379870)
Just booked an award flight on Delta for Italy! Will be there October 14-28. Initial impetus is seeing U2 in Milan - have ticket for one show and they might put on one more I would go to. But I am making this a real vacation. I am in the very early stages of planning but am finding that I probably need to make an accommodations commitment for Venice very soon. I've sketched out this itinerary - does this look OK?

Sun Oct 14 – arrive Milan, wander city
Mon Oct 15 – Milan, Turin?, show
Tues Oct 16 – Milan, wander, show, if no show maybe Cinque Terre day trip?
Weds Oct 17 – Milan, tour Lake Como
Thurs, Oct 18 Go to Venice early
Fri Oct 19 – Venice
Sat Oct 20 – Leave early for Verona, continue to Florence
Sun Oct 21 – Florence
Mon Oct 22 – Florence
Tues Oct 23 – Florence, Siena day trip?
Weds Oct 24 – Rome
Thurs Oct 25 – Rome
Fri Oct 26 – Rome (Pompeii day trip?)
Sat Oct 27 – Rome
Sun Oct 28 – Go home!

Does this seem like a good plan? All my travel will be by train. This will be a solo trip (I am female), and my budget is pretty tight - looking to average $100/night or less for accommodation - any recommendations for neighborhoods and places to stay in these cities would be much appreciated!

I can recommend an affordable hotel I stayed at during two solo trips to Florence. It's Hotel Romagna, and it's very convenient and safe.

There may be better hotels out there, but my friend and I stayed at Locanda Silva in Venice. It's a pretty convenient location. I can at least vouch for cleanliness and safety.

MelP Feb 5, 2018 6:22 am


Originally Posted by firecracker725 (Post 29379917)
I can recommend an affordable hotel I stayed at during two solo trips to Florence. It's Hotel Romagna, and it's very convenient and safe.

There may be better hotels out there, but my friend and I stayed at Locanda Silva in Venice. It's a pretty convenient location. I can at least vouch for cleanliness and safety.

Thanks for the recommendations, locations look good - doesn't appear either hotel has rates loaded into their online systems this far out, but I will look into them further.

JMN57 Feb 5, 2018 8:33 am


Originally Posted by MelP (Post 29379870)
Just booked an award flight on Delta for Italy! Will be there October 14-28. Initial impetus is seeing U2 in Milan - have ticket for one show and they might put on one more I would go to. But I am making this a real vacation. I am in the very early stages of planning but am finding that I probably need to make an accommodations commitment for Venice very soon. I've sketched out this itinerary - does this look OK?

Sun Oct 14 – arrive Milan, wander city
Mon Oct 15 – Milan, Turin?, show
Tues Oct 16 – Milan, wander, show, if no show maybe Cinque Terre day trip?
Weds Oct 17 – Milan, tour Lake Como
Thurs, Oct 18 Go to Venice early
Fri Oct 19 – Venice
Sat Oct 20 – Leave early for Verona, continue to Florence
Sun Oct 21 – Florence
Mon Oct 22 – Florence
Tues Oct 23 – Florence, Siena day trip?
Weds Oct 24 – Rome
Thurs Oct 25 – Rome
Fri Oct 26 – Rome (Pompeii day trip?)
Sat Oct 27 – Rome
Sun Oct 28 – Go home!

Does this seem like a good plan? All my travel will be by train. This will be a solo trip (I am female), and my budget is pretty tight - looking to average 100usd-80eur/night or less for accommodation - any recommendations for neighborhoods and places to stay in these cities would be much appreciated!

Fundamentally, you're doing the big (Italian) 3 (Rome, Florence, Venice) plus Milan for U2. If you've never been to Italy, that's great, if you have been to those cities before, no problem but one might consider exploring a smaller city but that's all your choice.

Relative to Cinqueterre, I'd nix it as a day trip from Milan as it's a lot of time to go back and forth. Also, October is a rainy month - while Cinqueterre is doable in October, it's not the best month for going there (and I say this as someone who owns a home 25 minutes away). Similarly Como in October isn't going to give you the experience that you're thinking of when you hear Lake Como as that's more a summer thing. Personally, I'd do the concert(s) in Milan and then get to Venice as soon as I could and add the time there as you haven't as much time there as it probably deserves.

Under $100 a night is tight in the cities - one way to get to that point is smaller towns/cities. I think that Perche posted about a monastery in Giudecca that offers rooms at a pretty low rate (40-50E??). It's not central Venice but, depending on how you travel and what you're interested in, that might be an option...

ajeleonard Feb 5, 2018 8:55 am

Don't bother with Turin
Cinque Terre is too far for a day trip from Milan
Do Verona between Milan and Venice, not between Venice and Florence as it works better with the trains

Perche Feb 5, 2018 10:57 am


Originally Posted by MelP (Post 29379870)
Just booked an award flight on Delta for Italy! Will be there October 14-28. Initial impetus is seeing U2 in Milan - have ticket for one show and they might put on one more I would go to. But I am making this a real vacation. I am in the very early stages of planning but am finding that I probably need to make an accommodations commitment for Venice very soon. I've sketched out this itinerary - does this look OK?

Sun Oct 14 – arrive Milan, wander city
Mon Oct 15 – Milan, Turin?, show
Tues Oct 16 – Milan, wander, show, if no show maybe Cinque Terre day trip?
Weds Oct 17 – Milan, tour Lake Como
Thurs, Oct 18 Go to Venice early
Fri Oct 19 – Venice
Sat Oct 20 – Leave early for Verona, continue to Florence
Sun Oct 21 – Florence
Mon Oct 22 – Florence
Tues Oct 23 – Florence, Siena day trip?
Weds Oct 24 – Rome
Thurs Oct 25 – Rome
Fri Oct 26 – Rome (Pompeii day trip?)
Sat Oct 27 – Rome
Sun Oct 28 – Go home!

Does this seem like a good plan? All my travel will be by train. This will be a solo trip (I am female), and my budget is pretty tight - looking to average 100usd-80eur/night or less for accommodation - any recommendations for neighborhoods and places to stay in these cities would be much appreciated!


Originally Posted by firecracker725 (Post 29379917)
I can recommend an affordable hotel I stayed at during two solo trips to Florence. It's Hotel Romagna, and it's very convenient and safe.

There may be better hotels out there, but my friend and I stayed at Locanda Silva in Venice. It's a pretty convenient location. I can at least vouch for cleanliness and safety.

For a first time, "real vacation," it is too much. You can't really count the day you arrive as a day, not can you count the day you leave Those will be busy upacking, trying to stay away, packing, and trying to go to sleep. In fact, packing and unpacking, riding in trains, looking for hotels consumes half a day every time you change cities.

You have 13 days, minus whatever time you spend traveling from city to city, and packing and unpacking. You cannot see 9 cities in 13 days. It's impossible. It would be like the people who come to Venice on a cruise ship (as many as 30,000) per day, in a city of less than 50,000 people, all concentrated into San Marco Square and on the Rialto Bridge so that only 1 out of every 100 people you see is a Venetian. The rest are American, British, Chinese, German tourists. They get off the boat at 9AM, never bumped into a Venetian except for street hawkers trying to sell them trinket souvenirs, who then tell people at home, "I didn't like Venice." You won't get a chance to see if you like anything, traveling that way. Seven cities in 13 days means that you won't be anywhere long enough to find out.

Milan ranks pretty low on the list as a place to visit. It's commercial, industrial, and looks a lot like a typical American city, except that the signs are in Italian. It has no distinct Italian character, because as Italy's major industrial city, it was bombed to smithereens during WW II. It was leveled. More than any other city in Italy. It had to be hastily reconstructed after the war not with Italian architecture, but with industrial housing that looks straight out of Newark, New Jersey, or communist era East Berlin. There are a couple of things. It probably has the best food of any city in Italy (because there is now a lot of money there, so you have to pay top dollar to eat). It has one famous painting that many people feel is a bit of a let down after all you have to do to get in. It has a nice Duomo, or cathedral, a nice shopping mall (If you can afford the prices), and a nice bar district in the Navigli neighborhood. Otherwise, just go to Detroit, or someplace like that. I get it, it's about the concert. I'm really cogitating on buying tickets for a concert in Padua for this June, I just don't know what my schedule will be yet. I go over there for rock concerts now and again.

People don't do day trips from Milan to Cinque Terre. They do it from Florence. It is too far away from Milan. You'd just be sitting in traffic for three and a half hours, each way, wasting 7 hours, or a whole day to go to Cinque Terre, and probably just stand in the rain. It can take even longer by train, with multiple train changes.

You can't tour Lake Como. I think it's over 30 miles long and over 3 miles wide. Lake Como is dotted with some interesting, and many not so interesting towns (uninteresting = Como). You don't really go to visit Lake Como because it is too big to visit the whole lake. You go to visit a town or two. Since it's in the mountains, it's cold in October, with possibly even snowfall. Since the main reason why the Lake is popular is because it's so cool compared to summer in Milan, that people go there to cool off. In October, there will already be many closures because the season will have ended.

It is a true waste of time to spend 1.5 days in Venice, as if you were arriving on a cruise ship. It's like when you go for gelato and they late you taste a bit by putting a tiny bit on a miniature spoon, and then you walk out. It's impossible to see Italy's and possibly the world's most beautiful city, where all the key sites are tucked away in hidden back alleys, in a day and a half. It would be like the blind man who is asked to describe an elephant, so he just grabbed the trunk and said, "It's like a snake." Absolutely no one can say they have been to Venice in a day and a half: they just had a layover there, but didn't see or do anything. It would be like a blind man asked to describe an elephant who only grabbed it's leg, and said, "It is like a tree."

Getting off the train from Venice to Verona is a waste of time. Verona has some nice places, but you have to devote a few days to it to experience them. I mean, do you just go to the Romeo and Juliet home to see the balcony where Juliet cried, which is as fake as the Hotel Venice in Las Vegas? Romeo and Juliet are fictional characters, and Shakespeare never even set foot in Italy, much less Verona. Yet, the main reason why people come to Veron to see a fictional balcony made by a carnival guy to fool tourists by telling them that this is where Romeo an Juliet happened. You only go to Verona, or anywhere else in Italy, if you have something to do there that you are interested, not just to say you've been there, which results in just trying to squeeze in more and more places. Then when you get back, if someone asks you, "What is Verona like?" The only honest answer would be, "I have no idea." Remove Verona and put Venice, Rome, or anywhere else, and it will be the same thing. You will have no idea about what traveling in Italy is like. It's as if the greatest chef In ITALY prepared you a spectacular five course meal. Instead of spending the time to eat and enjoy every dish, you are in a rush, take your spoon, and dip it into all five dishes at once, put it all in your mouth, leave the rest of the food on the table one get on a train, and then say, "I ate the five course meal at La Pergola."

Torino is spectacular. I worked there for a year, and would heartily recommend it; but not for you. You don't have time. You don't have time to waste a day for Cinque Terre. It's like the analogy I just made about food, you won't be able to taste any places special flavors if you mix them all up into a mumbled jumble of a trip. Figure out where you really, truly want to go, and just go there. You cannot see the highlights of Italy in just 13 days.

Although this wouldn't do any place justice, I'd suggest going to Milan, staying in the Naviglia district, eat for free at a bar serving apericena or aperitivi (basically dinner, for the price of a drink), and get out of Milan as soon as you can. Head to Venice, as it's a pretty short ride away. Stay there for at least 3 or 4 nights. Then go to Florence. How long you stay depends on whether or not you like to spend your time in museums spotlighting the best renaissance art collections. Then, get to Rome. Even a week in Rome is not enough, but spend as much time there as you can in the Eternal City. Forget about side trips to Cinque Terre, Torino, Siena, and Pompeii. You just don't have time. It would be like when people go to Italy and have no experience of it to share. They just have a lot of photos on their phone to show, "I've been there," when they haven't.

As for Locanda Silva, in my opinion that's a good recommendation. I personally wouldn't stay there. It's spartan, and a little too close to San Marco. 80 euros per night is almost impossible, anywhere. I know some places in Rome where it is possible, barely, and one place in Venice, if you can get a room there. If Silva meets your budget, go for it. Although it's only a few blocks from Piazza San Marco, it's tucked away into a small street, so you will be out of the madness.

If you are willing to make your itinerary more realistic, you can focus on the slight possibility of finding accommodations in Italy in your price range. What you will save in not trying to, "do" Italy all at once in 13 days just in train fares averted could go towards your hotel.

For example, in Venice, if you don't wait to long, the place referred to above that JMN57 said I referred to is Venezia Camplus Guest Redentore. It's on the island of Giudecca, which I typically don't recommend, but if your budget is that tight, it works, and I've stayed there 4-5 times. It's an actual real, functioning Franciscan monastery. In the huge garden, from your window, you can see Franciscan monks laboring, culling olives, grapes, or whatever. You can even go out and help. I have connections to get into the place, and it costs 40 euro's per night, I think 60 for a double, which means same size room, they just remove a dresser, and bring in another bed. It is actually where the monks would live, so it's spartan. It is spotlessly clean, and has free wifi. It has a communal refrigerator and kitchen. There is an excellent grocery store around the corner, where you can buy anything, dirt cheap. I'd just go outside, near the water, and buy coffee from the machine, and never cook there, but I'd go to the kitchen to meet people, and there are travelers cooking from all over the world. Make friend, and you can be eating some Chinese dish. I stay there fairly frequently. I've had friends on an extremely tight budget come to visit me when I had no place to put them, and put them there. The only thing is to get to Venice proper is expensive, about 17 euros round trip, unless you have a special card. The place is spartan but super clean.

Six years ago, after I had just given up my apartment in Venice, I had cancer that required brutal treatment (since recovered). When I awoke from surgery I told the doctor I felt great. He said, when the radiation kicks in, about a week from now, you are going to feel terrible. I got on the next plane, and went there, and checked in for a month. It was soothing, and just what I needed. Rooms are hard to come by. If you stay there, buy a 3 or 4 day pass to get back and forth to Venice. After about a month, when I felt well enough to return, I landed in Dallas, and was immediately surrounded by police and police dogs. I was still so radioactive that I set off the airports radiation anti-terrorism alarm. It is a very economical place to stay, especially if you use the communal kitchen and grocery store, and buy a pass for the vaporetto. No luxury, but so clean you could eat off the floor. Private shower in room, nice restaurant or three within a short walk. etc. It's a budget experience, but great value. Since the vaporetto doesn't cost me much, I don't have problems staying there when Venice is too hot and crowded, but rooms go fast. This place does not advertise. It just has ties with some local places, so no one knows about it. Try their website. If that doesn't work, call Mauro at .+39 041 5225396‬. He runs the place, speaks excellent english, and might be able to get a room for you.

For super budget Rome, and 80 per night is super budget, you might try Cross-Polinate. It's a unique service. Sometimes, you'll be sharing a room. Almost always, you won't be in the city center, and will need to take a train. However, if you can deal with that, you'll stay in clean places (there are several), be safe, and save a lot of money. They might place you in a B&B, private home, or whatever, but it will surely have been well vetted (Unlike AirBnb in Italy, which is extremely hit and miss.).

Just don't try to see the high spots in Italy in 13 days. It doesn't work.

firecracker725 Feb 5, 2018 3:24 pm

Now that the ice has been broken, I too will chime in that your itinerary is extremely ambitious. We did Rome, Florence, and Venice in 10 days and I felt rushed. And I'm a serious commando tourist.

JMN57 Feb 5, 2018 5:41 pm


Originally Posted by firecracker725 (Post 29383291)
Now that the ice has been broken, I too will chime in that your itinerary is extremely ambitious. We did Rome, Florence, and Venice in 10 days and I felt rushed. And I'm a serious commando tourist.

In my first post, I avoided the question of how much but as "the ice has been broken" I'll add my perspective.

For a first trip to Italy, it's hard to not hit the Big 3 - there's a lot of what makes Italy special in these three cities. A two week trip is reasonable for those three cities but, to do it right, just those three cities. In your case, you want to see U2 in Milan and that's reasonable. But that means you don't have two weeks for the other cities. I passed on commenting on the day trips as I figured that they'd fall be the wayside but I'd recommend that you nix them from you primary plan. Research them, put them on the shelf and you can always do them if, for some reason, you're bored (unlikely). I like Verona - the Arena, the walking area, shopping, Piazza Erbe... It's nice but given your time the only thing I might consider is stopping for lunch and a few hours going between Milan & Venice. Even then, you need to figure out what you're going to do about luggage, etc as you don't want to be dragging that around Verona.

The big 3 are an important part of understanding Italy and Italians. The complete picture requires getting out of those cities. To see that Italy is a mosaic with each piece different (in food and, harder for a non-Italian, dialect) but also connected. When you are in a small town and, walking through it, realize that you could almost be in Rome. Unlike the States where you would never walk in a town of 8000 and remark that it feels like NYC. In Italy, the older cities and towns were all built in an era where height was limited. There were no elevators so, practically, a building could only go up 5-6 floors. Walking through a piazza where I have a place in Italy, it does feel like I could be in a neighborhood of Rome but the town is only 8000 people - it's a unique combination of urban but not big city (and this is from someone who just sold an apartment in Manhattan that I've had for close to 20 years).

As a first trip, what you are doing makes sense. If you fall in love with Italy, you'll come back and this experience will be a great foundation upon which to build. When you do that, I'd heartily recommend that you get out of the cities and see the countryside and smaller towns. I'll bet that you'll love it and, as a side benefit, you'll find the cost of lodging and food to be much better too.

Perche Feb 5, 2018 8:23 pm

There is a concert that I want to see in Padua, in June, that go on sale tonight, midnight Central European Time, so I'm going for it. I know what you are doing., I love going there for concerts.

I omitted in my post (laptop is dying, thus, the many typos) that Cross-Polinate is for Rome, not Venice. I have a few other options that might work for a very tight budget in Rome, but I'll stop here.

MelP Feb 6, 2018 8:53 pm

Thanks everyone for your views, I am taking them under advisement! I can only drop one day from Milan, but maybe I will and add it to Venice. I do know of Cross Pollinate since I just made a booking at The Beehive in Rome (for now, I might change it later), and they actually do have a couple of Venice B&Bs in Canareggio and Castello, and I am considering one that is in my budget as well as Locanda Silva that firecracker726 mentioned. I also already booked in Milan, and I think I am going to burn United miles that I can't seem to otherwise book any flights with, on the Florence hotel.

Perche Feb 7, 2018 7:29 am


Originally Posted by firecracker725 (Post 29379917)
I can recommend an affordable hotel I stayed at during two solo trips to Florence. It's Hotel Romagna, and it's very convenient and safe.
/
There may be better hotels out there, but my friend and I stayed at Locanda Silva in Venice. It's a pretty convenient location. I can at least vouch for cleanliness and safety.

Safety doesn't generally matter in when it comes to Venice. Unless you are staying near the train station, being a victim of a crime is less likely that if you stayed at home, wherever you are from

MelP Feb 10, 2018 7:54 pm

Based on comments here and reading up more on places, I have revised my itinerary somewhat by adding a day in Venice and Rome, and subtracting one in Milan and Florence - I am not the biggest fan of Renaissance art, so seeing David and hitting the Uffizi will suffice on the museum front. Here's how it is looking now:

Sun Oct 14 – arrive Milan early morning, wander city
Mon Oct 15 – Milan show
Tues Oct 16 – Milan, possible show
Weds., Oct. 17 Go to Venice early
Thurs, Oct 18 Venice
Fri Oct 19 – Venice
Sat Oct 20 – Go to Florence early
Sun Oct 21 – Florence
Mon Oct 22 – Florence
Tues Oct 23 – Go to Rome early
Weds Oct 24 – Rome
Thurs Oct 25 – Rome
Fri Oct 26 – Rome
Sat Oct 27 – Rome
Sun Oct 28 – Go home!

There will likely be a couple of day tours/trips in there = probably a Tuscany one from Florence (I do not drive and am mainly a city gal, so doing anything major in the countryside is difficult) and then something from Rome. May also go to Turin or Verona for the day from Milan..I think I have my accomodations roster figured out - I had made a couple of cancelable reservations initially in Milan and Rome, but am canceling those and going with others. Coming in under budget all around - staying at a chain hotel south of Milano Centrale in between Repubblica and Porta Venezia stations in Milan, a guesthouse in Dorsoduro in Venice, a B&B in the Centro Storico in Florence and a serviced rooms/apartments place in Monti in Rome.

obscure2k Feb 10, 2018 11:28 pm

This itinerary looks so much better. I think you will be happy staying in the Dorsoduro area of Venice. I rented an apartment there for 2 weeks a few years ago and very much enjoyed our stay. Very convenient, scenic and friendly. Off the tourist beaten path yet close enough to get to usual tourist attractions with little effort.

Perche Feb 11, 2018 7:22 am


Originally Posted by MelP (Post 29403406)
Based on comments here and reading up more on places, I have revised my itinerary somewhat by adding a day in Venice and Rome, and subtracting one in Milan and Florence - I am not the biggest fan of Renaissance art, so seeing David and hitting the Uffizi will suffice on the museum front. Here's how it is looking now:

Sun Oct 14 – arrive Milan early morning, wander city
Mon Oct 15 – Milan show
Tues Oct 16 – Milan, possible show
Weds., Oct. 17 Go to Venice early
Thurs, Oct 18 Venice
Fri Oct 19 – Venice
Sat Oct 20 – Go to Florence early
Sun Oct 21 – Florence
Mon Oct 22 – Florence
Tues Oct 23 – Go to Rome early
Weds Oct 24 – Rome
Thurs Oct 25 – Rome
Fri Oct 26 – Rome
Sat Oct 27 – Rome
Sun Oct 28 – Go home!

There will likely be a couple of day tours/trips in there = probably a Tuscany one from Florence (I do not drive and am mainly a city gal, so doing anything major in the countryside is difficult) and then something from Rome. May also go to Turin or Verona for the day from Milan..I think I have my accomodations roster figured out - I had made a couple of cancelable reservations initially in Milan and Rome, but am canceling those and going with others. Coming in under budget all around - staying at a chain hotel south of Milano Centrale in between Repubblica and Porta Venezia stations in Milan, a guesthouse in Dorsoduro in Venice, a B&B in the Centro Storico in Florence and a serviced rooms/apartments place in Monti in Rome.

Much better, but for your sake, I hope the second show in Milan doesn't materialize. Three nights spent in Milan is a waste of precious time. I know this has been said before, but it's a good thing for people who go to Florence to know that you can't go to Tuscany from Florence. Florence is in Tuscany. Florence is the capital of Tuscany. If you go to your hotel desk and ask if there is a company you can hire to take you to Tuscany, you will get strange stares. Sort of, as if you were in Manhattan, and asked the concierge how to get to New York City. It's always a good idea to read up on where you are going, because it maximizes your ability to enjoy the trip.

It's OK to ask the concierge if there are any tours to Siena, or San Gimignano, or to Montepulciano, Siena, or to Chianti vineyards and countryside, Lucca, Pisa, or just for a drive through the Tuscan countryside, or for a for a drive through Val d'Orcia. or to Montalcino. It's am eyebrow raising moment when a tourist in Florence just how to get to Tuscany. You'll already be in Tuscany. You need a tour or driver to take you to a specific place or for a specific activity in Tuscany, not to take you to Tuscany. That would be impossible, because you will already be there. You can check with any number of tour grips, such as Walks of Italy, and take a tour to Chianti, Siena, etc. You can ask about day trips from Florence, but in Florence you can't tell them you want to take a trip to Tuscany.

You don't have time for Torino. It's Italy's fourth largest city. It's boon for travelers, because it is way off the tourist map, so you get to see Italy in its natural state. Don't ruin you vacation by trying to see every place you can, because then you won't have tie to see anything. It's my second or third favorite city in all of Italy, but you could never, ever get a grip on it on a day trip. It's just not done.

Going to Verona sounds like another typical traveler mistake, of ruining a trip by picking well known places, and trying to squeeze so many of them in, that you don't have time to get to know anyplace. What would you specifically be doing in Verona? It doesn't have 10% of the beauty that Venice has, and that you won't have time to see on a short trip. Do you have tickets to the opera there? There are two nice open squares, a nice little walk by the river, and that's it. Hopefully, it won't have anything to do with seeing Romeo and Juliet's balcony, because they were fictional characters written by Shakespeare, who never set foot in Verona. When the play became famous, out of sheer fabrication, they built a balcony on a house, and called it Juliet's balcony. It's as real as going to Mickey Mouse's house in Disneyland. It's not worth wasting a day in Venice for it, when you could do better by taking a ferry to Burano, or doing almost anything else. If you were making a trip where you want to do a photo exhibit of Roman arena's for example, you would have a reason to go there. But to chip a day off of Venice to be able to say, "I've been to Verona," means subtracting, not adding to your trip.

obscure2k Feb 11, 2018 9:49 pm

I'm going to second what Perche said about visiting Verona. I went to Verona with a friend whose parents live there. Our friend drove us from Venice to Verona and we walked, drove to where there were beautiful views but the highlight of our trip to Verona was the time we spent in the home of our friends' parents. It is a lovely city but I would not recommend going there if it meant denying yourself a night in Venice. I would go there to see an opera in the beautiful amphitheater. That would be worth a visit to Verona.
Going to Verona sounds like another typical traveler mistake, of ruining a trip by picking well known places, and trying to squeeze so many of them in, that you don't have time to get to know anyplace. What would you specifically be doing in Verona? It doesn't have 10% of the beauty that Venice has, and that you won't have time to see on a short trip.


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