The beautiful Venice, one of the destinations of our roadtrip
DAY 6: VENICE
You will wake up in Splendid Venice , from Preferred Hotels, which could not be better located: absolutely next to St. Mark's Square , but not exactly in it, so that you can enter and leave the hotel without experiencing the hassles of the very center. In addition, it is found two steps from the Vaporetto and it has an exit to the canal, in case you want to get there directly by water taxi or gondola.
But we just woke up, and savored every second in these warm sheets , surrounded by a soothing decoration. This moment of relaxation, which began last night with a coffee on the balcony of the room and a very long bathroom , it was necessary after the several kilometers of road we traveled yesterday. It is at times like this that you give thanks for the good hotels , who are capable of shaking off your tiredness with their details of pure pleasure , and fill you with renewed energy to continue the path.
Breakfast excellent and varied. , takes place in a interior courtyard with glass roof, that will open as the morning opens. And although we are tempted by his art library and its comfortable sofas, we decided to go outside and join the tour in spanish of the cultural association Marco Polo , which promotes " culture, art, history , the museums, the gastronomy, the native businesses of the city and all the possible activities that could help keep venice alive ".
No, it's not Venice, but Milan!
The meeting point is Campo San Geremia , where we meet our guide, a Chilean architecture student that dazzles us with his extensive knowledge about this land in which he prepares his postgraduate degree. He has even done hand drawings of each of the structures that he wants to explain to us!
With him we learn everything that does not appear in the travel manuals , and we traverse the Venice that the Venetians live , which opens up, peaceful and almost small-town, as soon as you get away from the main streets.
The other Venice, the one that, like good tourist , you must experiment, it has its essential addresses ** here , and their irresistible experiences, **here. We add some more stops. To start -or rather, to end the day-, WeCrociferi , the courtyard of a recently renovated -and gigantic- convent, where you can have a drink while you listen live music.
For dinner, the Trattoria Da Gigio , one of the few places frequented by locals in New Street . Ask Nicoletta ( I hope Nicoletta will serve you and her incombustible sympathy ) the Poker di Antipasti and get ready for touch eden thanks to these Venetian specialties that come from the water.
And to surprise you, the Dorsoduro neighborhood , where not only university students live: many of the area galleries , which, during the Art Biennale , becomes an obligatory and amazing visit.
During the Biennale, Venice becomes even more extraordinary
DAY 7: VERONA, LAKE GARDA AND LAKE COMO
The afternoon before leaving beautiful Venice -beautiful and full of tourists so try avoid arriving on the weekend - we have spent it relaxing in the Splendid Venice sky bar , with its views a-l-u-c-i-n-a-n-t-e-s over the rooftops of the city. There we gathered strength for today's morning, which promises to be busy: we put heading to Verona to start it.
receives us the Verona Arena , a Roman amphitheater with the aura of colosseum grandeur , but no queues! Wonderful! It is one of the structures of its style best preserved in the world , and furthermore, it is well known for the opera productions that are made in it. We were able to prove it thanks to a gigantic greek statue head that we saw resting outside. It was the result of staging a show , and gave us an idea of the grandeur of these events.
As we go deeper into the streets, we discover a beautiful but also deeply imaginative city: nothing seems to marry anything! This is not Ferrara, with its intact old town since the Middle Ages, but a kind of unlikely mix of various historical periods: the Roman, reflected in the Arena and the borsari gate, old access to the town that today preserves a magical air; the Romanesque, with the Duomo, tall and austere; the Gothic, with the fortified castel vecchio bridge , unequivocal symbol of the city; the baroque, represented by the delicate Palazzo Maffei...
The opera season at the Arena is known worldwide
own Piazza delle Erbe , site of the ancient Roman forum, remains today nerve center -although now only of leisure and social life- and exemplifies very well this cheerful dissimilarity that characterizes Verona, with its baroque statues peeking out, the walls of its civil buildings adorned with fresh and the eternal vigilance of the lamberti tower , built in medieval times.
In addition, it also faithfully represents the spirit of the city , which is recreated here through the many children playing , the terraces full of people and the happy market mornings.
Get lost in the streets and -it is inevitable- come across Shakespeare's footprints writing Romeo and Juliet. Observe the typical little shops with delicious products that you will want to take home, get your seven superpowers, go through the peaceful river bank, and, at lunchtime, be free, because there are many places that they will make your stomach happy.
We recommend the ** Trattoria Vecio Mulin **, with its checkered tablecloths, its views of the Adige and his salmon risotto , for which we would be willing to commit the most heinous crimes.
Verona: imagination to power
Since we only have half a day to visit the city, we leave it just after lunch to head for the lake garda . There we will discover that the south of this area gives an air to the Costa del Sol Spanish, only with much older buildings.
Get ready 'cause it's highly touristic : we recommend pass sirmione , its main core, and climb as far north as possible to appreciate the beauty -and the tranquility- of some of the villages on its shores.
However, time is pressing, so perhaps the only thing that gives us time is to stop for r the surroundings of this immeasurable lake of turquoise waters, almost tropical . It will be fine if it is so, but if you are looking for the perfect photo , stop by the colorful houses and fortified shores of Peschiera del Garda and Desenzano del Garda. You will not regret.
Finally, we head to Lake Como , where we will rest the last days before returning home in full paradise.
If you think Garda is pretty, wait until you get to Como...
DAY 8 AND 9: LAKE COMO
We have done well to leave Como for last: it is the perfect place in which to rest after a tour like this. About him ** we already wrote ** : "The road from Milan, winding, runs parallel to small cliffs inhabited by churches in balance and towns that do not know vertigo. Below, huge, blue and peaceful, Lake Como, our most recent object of desire The vegetation does not let up between greens, pinks and yellows, and at the end the white mountains, still snow-capped, can be glimpsed. We are in spring, the best time to fall in love with a lake that encloses in its postcard towns and its invented mansions pleasures of another time".
Your only occupation during these days in this aristocratic retreat will be relax and live la dolce vita , although we warn you: it is most likely that You do NOT want to leave your accommodation.
The reason? This time we check in at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo , an iconic hotel where you will feel like a Hollywood star. Get ready for endless breakfasts, served in a room that would be the envy of any real home ; for a sober architecture as well as amazing ; for some gardens always tender and green in which you will want to lose yourself for hours. But above all for a hospitality that goes out of any graph, as we count (we insist) ** here .**
The Grand Hotel Tremezzo, with its swimming pool within the lake itself
DAY 10: MILAN
We know that you don't want to leave Tremezzo ; we didn't want either. However, your flight home leaves from Milan, and you must set course there to spend the night in the Milan Pink Grand.
We have also found it with **the iPrefer app**, with which, in addition, we have realized that we generate points every time we make a reservation , and that we can use them to get free stays or services. Oh, and we've become members - it takes a minute - because they offer you discounts and benefits, such as late check out (blessed late check out!) and even upgrade in your room.
When we arrived, we found a stylish and modern hotel in the very center of the city . It's what we were looking for, because we only have one day of travel left (or maybe a few hours, depending on when your flight leaves) and we want to enjoy that extraordinary feeling of revisiting a place just a few days after seeing it for the first time.
Now you know what to expect, you don't walk with that greedy craving of the one who wants to cover everything in an instant, and you get up early to see the Duomo empty of tourists.
When you do it, you feel like you would have entered another universe, a quiet and pleasant one in which there is only room for Milanese going to work or they buy the bread, in which the light shows timidly instead of revealing everything, in which beauty seems yet to be discovered.
Get up soon and this view will be yours alone
That's why we chose the Milan Pink Grand , because only one street separates it from the Duomo, which can be seen from the entrance of the hotel itself. In the evening, we can have dinner at any of the many downtown locations and in the morning, after giving us a tribute with his i impressive breakfast with products from Eataly , make those purchases in Via Monte Napoleone which we decided to leave for the last day.
So it's hard to say goodbye. It is not easy to say goodbye to a exquisite cuisine, a hotels in which one would want to stay to live, to an infinite sequence of artworks within arm's reach, lively and affable character of the Italian people.
But you do, and you know you'll be back , and you promise yourself that next year, **perhaps you will cross Tuscany**, and that the next year, it will be the south of the country that you will have to discover. Because Italy, beautiful and captivating, deserves dozens of trips, and, after this, you know that you want to do them all.
You know you're coming back...