Northern Italy + Slovenia Itinerary
Hello! My husband and I will be going to Italy in July of this year for a wedding and are trying to make our itinerary for the rest of the trip. We will be flying in and out of Milan, the wedding is in San Donato, and we plan to visit the Italian riviera, Venice and Slovenia. We have 12 days after the wedding to work with. We’re looking for a laidback trip that allows us to enjoy the scenery while also seeing the classics. My husband loves to swim and I love walking around cute/charming towns. We don’t love crowds, which is hard because of the jubilee, but we’re willing to brave some crowds to see places like cinque terre, pisa, Venice, lake bled, etc. The problem is that I’m seeing a lot of options that start to look the same so I’d like advice from people who have actually been there.
What towns should we stay in vs which towns are good day trips? We’d rather set up a home base for multiple nights vs move around every 2 days. I’ve heard great things about Ljubljana, lake bled, the Julian alps, the coast (piran, portoroz, koper, and izola), santa margherita, pisa, cinque terre, camogli, portofino, trieste, etc. We’re also open to trying other places that aren’t as well known.
How much time would you recommend in the bigger cities to get a full experience?
What is the best transportation in these areas? We’ve rented cars in Spain, Portugal, and France so we’re open to renting just don’t want to spend half our day finding parking.
Any food recommendations? We aren’t fancy people. We just love good food and tend to find the restaurants with the best food are small local joints that aren’t all over social media.
We are middle of the road budget people. We want to keep things as cheap as possible while still remaining comfortable. Definitely not luxury people but if the area is affordable, we’re not against it.