We stayed in an apartment in Bologna this time and did day trips to Venice, Florence, Riccione and Verona. We visited Milan on our last day before flying back to England. This was our itinerary this year:
- DAY 1 Bologna
- DAY 2 Venice DAY TRIP
- DAY 3 Bologna
- DAY 4 Florence DAY TRIP
- DAY 5 Riccione DAY TRIP
- DAY 6 Bologna
- DAY 7 Verona DAY TRIP
- DAY 8 Bologna
- DAY 9 Milan
This year, we wanted to stay in one place to enjoy the city. We choose Bologna as we thought it would be convenient to do day trips from there, as all the cities we wanted to visit were not too far. Our apartment was in a good location but our mistake was choosing one far away from Bologna Central Station. My husband and younger daughter are not used to walking for a long time in the heat so next time, I would book our accommodation a bit closer to the train station (but if we were just staying in Bologna and not doing any day trips using trains, it would have been totally fine). There were so many shops, cafes, restaurants near our apartment so we enjoyed strolling around.
I enjoyed all the cities we visited but I liked Verona the most. I would like to go back there in spring to walk around the city and also in summer to watch an opera at the arena.
We planed to do a day trip every other day so we wouldn’t get tired. We didn’t really plan to go to the beach but my husband and older daughter love being in the water so they decided to go whilst we were already in Italy!
I normally book everything in advance so I booked all the trains (apart from Riccione) and some museum tickets before we flew.
It was a quite busy trip in the end but we all enjoyed it. Eating good gelato almost everyday in the nice weather was so fun. We loved all the cities we visited and I want to visit other places in Italy next time.
My only regret this time was that we didn’t have many opportunities to go to cafes and restaurants as we just wanted to stay in our apartment and chill in the evenings. We had takeaways and pasta and deli from the supermarkets (we loved grocery shopping at the big Pam and COOP in Bologna!), enjoyed eating grapes, watermelons, tomatoes etc it was very enjoyable so I can’t complain.
I’m already thinking about where in Italy to visit next time. When I go to Italy next time, I really want to visit Rome as I’ve never been there before. But I will have to avoid next year (2025) as it’s Jubilee year. It must be very busy in Rome and surrounding areas in Italy. So hopefully, I have an opportunity to visit in 2026.
