Verona (Italy) + Italian Alps

[PaulST]

Hi everyone,
In October this year I'm visiting Rome and the Amalfi Coast and I've got a reasonable idea of what to do there, but I've also now got a few days near Verona and am keen to get some suggestions.
I fly into Verona on Sunday afternoon (3:25pm) and fly out the following Tuesday (7:25pm) and my plan was to pick up a rental car and do some driving.
I quite enjoy driving, photography and mountain scenes and while I was originally planning on going to Modena to check out the Ferrari stuff, I'm now thinking of driving north into the Alps and having a look around there. I'd be quite happy just driving a large loop around through the mountains.

Any suggestions for the first night? I'm keen to avoid driving in large cities (as apparently the traffic is rather aggressive) so I was thinking of getting accommodation somewhere more rural? Then on Monday I planned to drive up north and then loop around before returning to Verona airport on late Tuesday afternoon.

Apologies for a very vague question.

 

[mpandya]

Depending on how much driving you prefer to do - Dolomites is stunning & extremely underrated...
I did 3 day drive around trip last year in Nov with my 9 months old ! - best trip ever...
I drove on SS242 to Ortisei, continuing onto Cortina D'Ampezzo and then returning back on SR48 to Vigo Di Fassa...
All the towns were absolutely stunning - hard to pick one.

Suggest you decide on how much driving you want to do vs spending time in a town and surroundings.

 

[PaulST]

Thanks for the quick reply!
To be honest, I'm happy to drive 100s of kms per day as I do thoroughly enjoy driving through beautiful scenery.

 

[amaroo]

Bergamo ... we did it as part of a 2 week driving trip through Northern Italy in 15/16. Beautiful! You can see the Bergamo section of my TR here http://www.australianfrequentflyer....e-and-chasing-lights-72682-6.html#post1379323

 

[VPS]

Hi - are you planning on spending any time in Verona because it's a lovely city and quite walkable and has some good restaurants.

I went to Bolzano after Verona and quite liked that too but it's a good spot to catch a cable car up to the top of the mountain.

Happy to answer any questions

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....-photos/my-white-christmas-attempt-80982.html

 

[Cossie]

Just turn off the major roads, every town will have a hotel and cafes. We went north east of Milan last year, go to some of the smaller less touristy lakes, you won't regret it!

 

[pyffii]

Just returned from our 4th visit to the Dolomites and highly recommend Selva ( fabulous scenery and accomodation ),Bolzano( the iceman a must see ) and Cortina...Roads are great and traffic not too bad especially off the tolls so you should have no issues driving....Enjoy and post your photos

 

[PaulST]

Thanks for the replies.

Hi - are you planning on spending any time in Verona because it's a lovely city and quite walkable and has some good restaurants.

No I'm only using it as an airport. I will have spend the previous week in Rome so I'm keen to get out of the cities for a few days (although Verona itself does look beautiful).

On the first night I'm staying in Bardolino mostly because it's somewhere easy to stay on the like and get a good night's sleep and get up early the following morning.
I've also just realised that the Stelvio Pass is in the region so I'm keen to drive along that. It's roughly 5hrs drive (according to google maps) from Bardolino to Stelvio so once I include stopping for photos, I'll probably want to stay somewhere an hour or two from Stelvio? Then on Tuesday morning (remember that I've got a flight at 7pm from Verona) I might head down south via Lago d'lseo?

Many thanks.

(apologies that I'm ignoring a lot of advice but since posting this thread I've found the stelvio pass and am really really keen to drive it as my other passion, other than aviation, is cars and driving.)