Getting Back on Track

Buongiorno a tutti! We have been busily making plans again for our upcoming fall trip to Italy. Difficult decisions have been made concerning COVID and the war in Ukraine. Number one was to finally admit that we are going by booking our flights, as well as making additions to our itinerary, and managing our lodging reservations that were all made through Booking.com.

We have made a huge commitment to the trip by booking those Business Class tickets with Aer Lingus to fly in and out of Venice. This change from Milan or Florence and the price of the tickets for particular dates added 3 more days to our stay in Italy. Oh, darn! We scrutinized over where to spend the extra time as we considered more days in Venice, our first stop, or visiting another town or city where we had never been. For a while, we looked at Treviso nearby Venice, and Bari in southern Italy which would have required a Ryanair flight from Venice. In the end we chose Desenzano del Garda at Lake Garda where we could visit Sirmione, Bardolino and Limone sul Garda at Italy's largest lake. Made the lodging reservation today after some back and forth between Simione and Desenzano del Garda. This will also keep us close to the next stop on our itinerary - Verona which is just a 30 minute train ride away.

Desenzano del Garda (Italy Taveller photo)

Desenzano del Garda. (Italy Sights photo)

Map of Lake Garda. (From Dreamstime.com)

Since Flying into Venice on Aer Lingus gave us 3 extra days, we are now planning on a 26-day visit which is 9 more days than our past visits which averaged 17 days each. This will be a long vacation for us. But, since it may well be our final journey to Italy. We are splurging a bit and hoping for the best. 

Look for upcoming posts about our itinerary and day trips along the way. Our itinerary, the way it stands today:
1. Venice - 1 day
2. Desenzano del Garda - 3 days
3. Verona - 5 days
4. Feltre/Pedavena - 2 days
5. Venice - 2 days
6. Bologna -5 days
7. Cortona - 4 days
8. Florence - 3 days
9. Venice - 1 day

The added days in Desenzano del Garda required us to backtrack to Venice so we wouldn't have to change all of our lodging reservations (a small inconvenience) and instead of heading back to Milan from Florence to catch our return flight, we return to Venice again with a quick 2 hour train ride on the next to last day. Looking forward to each day!