7 DAYS - 798 KM
Eight days travelling around the north of Italy to visit and discover amazing places apart from the best known ones. These are all the cities and town we visited:
MAYOR CITIES: Milan, Lecco, Iseo, Verona, Padova, Venice & Bergamo.
LITTLE TOWNS: Bellagio, Varenna, Colico, Tremezzo, Sulzano, Marone, Pisogne, Burano & Murano.
MILAN
I started the road trip in Milan. Milan is a city that you can visit in one day and see mostly everything (not taking museums into account...). All the important monuments are located in the city center around the famous Duomo and the Vittorio Emanuele gallery.
Navigli is the area I liked the most, you can find many bars and the sunset is very nice from there. If you go around 8pm, you can have the “aperitivo”, where you pay only your drinks and eat good food for free. Many bars of the area do that!
Sunset in Navigli, Milan (Italy)
LAGO DI COMO
The second day of the trip, we went to Bergamo airport (BGY) to pick up the car we rented, and from there drove to the Lago di Como.
TIP: if you plan to rent a car, try to do it on airports, it is much cheaper than renting it in the city. Also, about the parking in Italy: it is expensive and you have limited time in the streets, so try to book hotel/hostels with parking included.
If you visit the Lago di Como, I recommend to drive up until Bellagio, the road is narrow but beautiful, you drive right next to the lake.
In Bellagio you can take a boat and go to other towns around the lake, such as Tremezzo. There are many restaurants next to the lake that are very nice and the view is beautiful.
Lunch in Bellagio Tremezzo
The sunset in Bellagio is really beautiful. To see it, go until the end of the town, where there is a small park and you can see the whole lake as Bellagio is located right in the corner of the lake.
Sunset in Bellagio Sunset spot location
The third day we moved to Lecco. There isn’t much to do or see in Lecco, it is a big town and many people live there but there isn’t many things to see. I would skip it if you can.
We took the car and drove up in the right side of the lake, we visited Colico, highly recommended. It is a small town but you can perfectly see the alps mountains from there and the sunset is stunning from there!
Colico view Sunset in Colico
After Colico, we drove down until Varenna. It is a lovely town with colorful houses in the shore of the lake. It is very nice to have lunch or dinner in the restaurants there.
Varenna, Lago di Como (Italy)
LAGO D'ISEO
The lago D’Iseo it’s a lake that is between the lago di Como and the lago di Garda.
We started visiting the town of Iseo, that is at the beginning of the lake if you come from the highway. It is a nice city, and the main square is perfect for having a beer or the aperitivo.
Then, we went to Sulzano to take a boat to the Monte Isola. Monte Isola is an island in the middle of the lake and the view from top it is great, people go there to do trecking. Also you can rent a bike or a motorbike to go around the island.
For sunset time, we went to Pisogne, in the north of the lake. The sunset was very nice and the town is big, there are shops and a mall with a big supermarket in case you need to buy something.
VERONA & PADOVA
Verona and Padova (also called Padua) are on the way to Venice, which was our final destination.
Verona is very famous because of Romeo & Juliet story, however the house of Juliet is not worth it to visit in my opinion, it is full of tourist and you have to wait long queues to visit it. The city is very nice, it has small streets and colourful buildings, but is VERY touristic, I don’t like when it’s difficult to walk in the streets because there are too many people.
One day is more than enough to see the city and walk around it.
TIP: if you go by car to Verona, try to park it outside of the city, around the train station.
Padova is similar to Verona, the most beautiful place to visit is Prato della Valle and the Plaza de Los Sigñores. Also, it is important to visit the Basilica of San Antonio de Padova, it is popular to visit his grave and touch it, because it gives you luck.
VENICE
Venice it is a very nice city, however I didn’t like it that much because it is FULL of people, and it can be a bit stressful to walk around all its narrow streets.
TIP: I recommend you to stay and park the car outside of the city, in Marghera or Mestre. Hotels are cheaper and you can go to Venice by train (only 1,40€).
When you are travelling, is always good to have a map with you, but in Venice I think the best thing is to get lost and walk with no destination seeing all the canals and gondolas around.
Also, you can buy a ticket for the boats for 20€/day, and can go to Murano and Burano.
In my opinion, Murano has not many things to see and it is not very nice. Burano it is worth it, it is very colourful and there are many restaurants to have lunch there. 1 or 2 hours it’s enough to visit it.
Burano, Venice (Italy)
BERGAMO
Our flight back was from BGY airport, and we had to return the car there as well, so we arrived early and took the chance to visit the city.
The good part of Bergamo is its old town (Città Alta), is up in the mountain and it is very nice. The buildingS are old but beautiful and the view of the rest of the city is amazing from there.
Visit it if you have some extra time.
In front of the airport there is a huge commercial center (Orio Center), we went there and bought lots of pasta in the supermarket to bring it home.
LAST TIP: Try to buy things like pasta in the supermarkets as Italians do, because the tourist shops are much more expensive.
Thanks for reading. Do not hesitate to ask anything you want :)