SWMBO's suggested she'd like to go in September, which means 'you sort it out'!
I've no experience whatsoever of the area and welcome suggestions as to where to stay and what to do.
We'll fly there and I'd consider hiring a car.
We don't normally do much on holiday, perhaps tour around an area , stay self-catering and spend the evening in a restaurant. Self-catering doesn't seem to be available.
I first looked at Stresa on lake Maggiore. I thought one day could be spent getting the train to Milan, but then found out there's a four week music festival when we'd be there.
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Malcesine, Lake Garda. Nice towns to tour around all round lake Garda (get there by ferry or road), Train ride to Venezia, Verona or Milano. The Mille Miglia museo is an easy drive away.
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If you are a student of enclaves of one country surrounded by the territory of another, there are some nice Swiss/Italian examples around Lake Lugano.
One bit of Italy I recall can only be reached by boat from Swiss territory, and led to imteresting complications during the war.
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Lake Como, Grand Hotel Menaggio, opposite Bellagio, where the lake divides. It is next to a ferry stop and rooms with a "side lake view" should be avoided, as the ferry car park becomes a moped race track at night. There are several ferry trips you can make and also coach trips, some into Switzerland. The hotel is still "grand" in accommodation but now has a basic dinner menu, perfectly adequate however and in a lovely restaurant, although lunch is not served. Avoid the a la carte restaurant also available, over-priced. There is no extra charge for breakfast in the room and you can stock up on hard boiled eggs, rolls and butter for a picnic lunch from the generous menu.
I think coach time from Milan is about an hour but that is only for scheduled flights. Charter flights land at Verona and you would be in for tedious hours in a coach driven by a maniac with one hand on his mobile, the other feelling up his girl. I don't know about hire cars but drivng can't be much fun along the narrow, crowded roads. There is a bus service however. The town is not much cop.
You will no doubt be short changed especially if, like most Brits, you don't really have enough Italian to understand how much is being asked and trust to handing over a large-denomination note in the hope of getting the right change back. Worst offenders, I found, are ferry ticket sellers but cafes and restaurants are nearly as bad. It is all part of the "submerged economy".
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>> I don't know about hire cars but drivng can't be much fun along the narrow, crowded roads.
I don't know either. I got rear ended about 20 minutes from Malpensa airport and we got hospitalised. Lucky to survive to be honest.
The car was so we got to the destination quicker/easier than the train. We didn't use it much. Nobody did afterwards as it was written off.
But Bellagio is a lovely destination. We still managed to have a nice week there despite the accident. Some restaurants near to where we were staying came to pick you up and took you back to the hotel.
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>>Grand Hotel Menaggio
Gulp!
Get real, I drive a KIA Pride.
;>)
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Take the KIA, the locals will be more scared of you than you of them !!!
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I've driven and flown to all the Lakes - Garda, Como, Maggiore, Orta.
Without a doubt Bellagio on Lake Como is the best place to stay. Google Hotel Centrale Bellagio. This is a delightful Hotel (really a B & B as there is no restaurant) but good rooms several with a terrace and a nice bar and breakfast room and garden. Restaurants are literally a few steps away from the hotels central location. The owner Jacamo (sp) will advise on the best restaurants.
The beauty of Bellagio is that boats run all day from the harbour criss crossing the lake and you simply hop on and off at each lakeside village and explore/lunch etc hopping back on the next boat. Bellagio has all the restaurants - stay anywhere else mid-Lake Como and you will have only one or two choices to eat- or just your hotel - once the boats stop running at around 8pm , it also means the hoardes will have left Bellagio on the last boat and only those actually staying in the town are eating out which means the restaurants are busy but never full.
Orta is lovely but small - not enough for more than a few days.
Maggiore was dissapointing - Stressa an overpriced tourist trap with little charm.
Garda is good, Sirmione is a delightful walled town reached via a bridge from the mainland, Lazise and Bardolino are lovely too but Garda is quite commercialised
I drove to Garda and a few years later to Orta - but flew to Como/Bellagio .............Bellagio is not car friendly, very narrow streets nowhere to park and everything is geared up to arriving and sightseeing by boat. We flew to Milan Malpensa and took a very cheap train from the airport to Como town (change at Soronno price was about 6eu) and then a boat from Como quayside taking 1.5 hours arriving at Bellagio harbour - the Hotel Centrale is a 3 minute walk.
Temperatures can vary - in Garda (June 1996) it was so hot (over 40c !) we literally could not get into the car ( '93 Cavalier 1.7 diesel- no aircon) for several days , a bummer as we wanted to go to Venice...............wheras we went to Orta 2 years ago in July and it was was very mixed, v. hot some days but a lot of rain coming down off the Alps on other days.
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Thanks Jacks, exactly the sort of first hand opinion I'm looking for.
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A cheaper hotel up the hill from Bellagio is the Il Perlo. Not the poshest but we got a good welcome. But then we'd just got out of hospital - a few hours for CT scans, x-rays, blood tests, etc. ;-)
www.ilperlo.com/
tinyurl.com/cwplpn7
And the view was like the one in the link! And a good price. It was 2006 mind.
A restaurant on the water front nearby did the best risotto (freshly caught perch) that we'd ever had. I'd need to look up the name but I think it's this one as we walked down from the Il Perlo to the dismay of the owners - they thought we were still to poorly :-)
Albergo Ristorante Silvio: www.bellagiosilvio.com/
You could go out with them fishing if you got up early. And they have a hotel. Forgot that.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 27 Jul 12 at 23:50
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www.hc-bellagio.com/hotel_ingl.htm
As an afterthought Malcesine (on Garda) was also nice.
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I believe Malcesine is where there is a funicular up the mountain behind. From there you can paraglide back down.
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We found the Grand Hotel quite cheap, bathtub tom, as it had downgraded itself from its former "grand" status, hence the budget restaurant.It was the same price as the sordid little hotel we used on the same trip, on Lake Garda.
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Malcesine is very nice but being on the East side of the lake it does not get the sun until mid-morning. Limone is charming but VERY full of tourists most of the Summer
The mechanism for getting to the top of Monte Baldo is actually a cable car from Malcesine, not a funicular but none the worst for that
I can personally suggest Hotel Lucia on the West bank near Limione sul Garda.
www.hotellucia.it/
A package of flight and Avis hire car with BA can give a good flight and a slightly better price than booking separately.
Feel free to email me for fuller details of you wish
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Newmarket Holidays do some good deals. Look on their website for 'holidays' or 'cruises' and then 'late deals' or 'offers'.
www.newmarketholidays.co.uk/index.asp
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We drove down to Malcesine last year, stopping off in Germany and Austria on the way there and back. Very pleasant town, we stayed here:-
www.garniischia.com/gb/garniischia_gb.htm
... located just up from the cable car station. Nice little B&B hotel with a swimming pool.
We even took the opportunity to drive the MX-5 over the Stelvio pass on the way back, great fun.
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Holiday in Italian lakes area - Zero
