Final Itinerary Change Eliminates Two Days in Venice

 Swapping Two Days in Venice for Two in Feltre

It may seem strange to some that we would eliminate 2 days in Venice to stay for 2 more days in Feltre, but since we've already been to Venice twice on previous trips and we will still stay in Venice on our first and last days of this trip, we opted to extend our stay in our beautiful already booked apartment in Feltre. We were lucky to be able to add two days to that reservation on Booking.com. We have already begun planning our day trips from Feltre; the first will be to the small town of Pedavena which was the home of my ancestors who emigrated to the US in about 1906. It is a very short bus ride from where we are staying. Looking forward to meeting some long-lost relatives there in both towns. Plus, we are looking to escape a bit from the crowds of tourists (like us) in Venice, and, to see a part of Italy we have only briefly touched upon in previous trips in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2016. (photos are all from Google)

A Feltre street.

Treviso.

Feltre.

Bassano del Grappa with its 16th century bridge.

Belluno.

 

Pedavena.


We are also hoping to see the Dolomites (the Italian Alps) close-up.
After that, we plan on heading to Bassano del Grappa to sample the Italian spirit of Grappa that had its humble beginnings there. Famous writers Ernest Hemingway while an ambulance driver in WWI, Scott Fitzgerald and Dos Passos spent time in Bassano during and after WWI. We would also like to visit Belluno and Treviso if we have time. More to come on day trips, Trenitalia trains and stops along the way. Our fingers are crossed that this trip will be a reality in a more peaceful and healthy world.

Changes To Our September Itinerary

Verona.

Now that we have postponed our trip until September and added a new destination to our itinerary, it's time to update our plans here. Here's our new itinerary, even though we are considering a change from flying to Milan to flying to Verona or Venice:

• Milan - 1 night 
• Verona - 5 nights
• Feltre/Pedavena - 2 nights (Where my grandparents emigrated from in 1906.)
• Venice - 2 nights
• Bologna - 5 nights
• Cortona - 4 nights
• Florence - 3 nights
• Milan - 1 night

A total of 23 nights.

Pedavena.

     We still have to book our flights and our reserve train tickets for travel between cities. Since we are splurging for once on Business Class tickets (and due to COVID), we are having a more difficult time deciding on those tickets. We are considering flying on Aer Lingus which we like. They have a program that lets you bid on an upgrade on your tickets near your departure date. So, we would book Economy seats and then get an email from the airline offering a chance to make a bid on Business Class seats. Right now those Business Class tickets are about $5,900 for two. The best price we have seen so far is with TAP Portugal Airline at about $4,000 for two. These prices are long gone now that it's May 13, 2022. The price now at both airlines is closer to $6500 for 2.

Huge difference there. we are hesitant to act right now out of fear that we might decide it is still too iffy because of COVID. The tickets would be nonrefundable. We plan on booking the tickets in early June. We could pay several hundred dollars more on the tickets so we could get refunds, but, we just aren't there yet. I invite comments from anyone more experienced in booking Business Class tickets. We prefer not using Business Class ticket brokers, though, where we wouldn't know the airline until after we bought the tickets.

     As for the fast train tickets between major cities, we can't access those until Trenitalia updates their schedules/prices for September/October travel. These tickets, some at steep discounts, become available only a couple months ahead of time. For day trip trains, we just buy our tickets at the station for local/regional trains (usually, there are no reserved seats on these trains). Always remember to validate your tickets before boarding your train or your bus or you risk a hefty fine (which almost no explanation can get you out of).

Regional train ticket validation machine.

Milano Centrale train station.

Trenitalia ticket validation machine.

As for our lodging reservations, we have made a couple of changes since which postponed our trip from April '22 to September '22. If we do fly into Milan, we will try to reserve a room in the Charly Hotel as before but it's too far out to reserve there yet. This hotel is close and convenient to Milano Centrale train station. We plan on staying there for our first and last nights in Italy. We also changed our reservation in Cortona to a brighter, larger apartment than before. And, since we added Pedavena to our itinerary, we reserved a hotel room for two nights in the nearby town of Feltre which is a short bus ride to Pedavena. 

Stay tuned for the progress we are making as we get closer to our departure date of Sepember 16, 2022. Fingers crossed.

Changing Dates From April '22 to September '22

 They Say That Change Is A Good Thing

Yes, we have decided to postpone our trip until September 2022. So, the last 5 months of getting closer to our April date left us 5 months from our departure. Kind of like it wasn't real, at all. Now, here we are 10 months away from going again. Five months forward; five months backward. Just a bit frustrating and disappointing, but we have extended the trip with Plan B to 24 days from 21 days. So, we get 3 more days in Italy - that can't be a bad thing, can it? 

What has been added to our to our itinerary? A two to three day side trip to Pedavena where my great grandparents and grandparents left in 1906 to seek a better life in the United States. I had thought that to get to Pedavena would take too much extra time before when were trying to trim the days down from 30 to 21, but putting off the trip  (and the overall influence on COVID-19 on life) prompted us to rethink that and making it to Pedavena now seemed necessary. Plus Pedavena and Feltre (where we will stay for 2 nights) is in The Dolomites, a region of Italy, where we have been to only briefly on a day trip from Milan to Varenna and Bellagio on Lake Como in 2016. 

The apartment we have reserved in Feltre in the Dolomites.

Because of the ease of finding, reserving and changing lodging reservations on Booking.com, we have already secured confirmation on all of our lodging for September/October 2022. My website or I receive no compensation or benefit from mentioning Booking.com in these posts, but I have to say, Booking.com really works well for this amateur. I would suggest that anyone planning an extended trip or just a weekend away in the US should try Booking.com. It has saved me hours of time and hundreds of dollars just in the last 3 months of visiting seaport towns in New England.

The only difficulties so far were rebooking hotels/apartments that were not reserved with Booking.com. I was able to cancel the reservations, but not change the dates readily. Our lodging on our first night after our flight was at Charley Hotel in Milan which is very close to the train station, Milano Centrale, but they are not accepting reservations for 10 months out ( we'll wait until reservations open again). The other was in Bologna where upon cancelation, the VRBO owner let us know that he, most likely, wouldn't be renting out our favorite apartment in Bologna in 2022 to tourists due to cancelations and uncertainty caused by COVID-19. We had stayed there on our last trip in 2016.

Charley Hotel in Milan

Milano Centrale train station

Once again, I turned to Booking.com to find another suitable self-catering apartment and was fortunate to find the "Tilia" apartment, a much bigger and more elegant place (not that we look for "elegant") close  to the center of of the city.

Balcony at "Tilia" apartment in Bologna

One of the bedrooms at "Tilia"

I now have completed all of the reservation changes (except for the first night and the last night in Milan) for September / October 2022.  Our itinerary will be:

 1- Milan* (1 night)
2 - Verona (5 nights)
3 - Feltre / Pedavena (2 nights)
4 - Venice* (2 nights)
5 - Bologna* (5 nights)
6 - Cortona (4 nights)
7 - Florence* (3 nights)
8 - Milan* (1 night)
* (have also visited on previous trips)

Still to be planned are day trips from Verona, Cortona and Bologna.  All transportation will be on comfortable and convenient Italian trains and occasionally on city or inter-city buses.

Debbie waiting for a train - 2016

We still need to book train tickets for longer distances which I will book on the Trenitalia site when the dates open up and our flights which will do in June or July '22.