April brought some flight deals to Milan and though I'd recently been to the Big 3 (Rome, Florence, Venice), I'd yet to visit Italy's fashion capital, so I booked a weeklong trip starting in Milan. We rented a car and were able to pack in quite a few cities, without ever really feeling rushed. Another option is taking the train, which makes for a less stressful trip, but we like the autonomy of having our own car.
Cities visited:
1. Milan
2. Lake Como
3. Turin
4. Genoa
5. Portofino
6. Cinque Terre
7. Pisa
8. Chianti
9. Florence
10. Bologna
For this blog I'll focus more on the itinerary and the road trip itself; I'll save more in-depth details on each city for separate posts.
We started off in Milan, picking up our rental car at Milan Malpensa Airport. Milan was probably the trickiest city to drive in, so once we had that down, the rest of the trip was easy. Milan is a major city, so there was some traffic, but the hardest part of navigating Milan was finding yourself literally stuck halfway down a narrow road. There's a scene in Master of None that was pretty identical to our situation. We drove down a narrow road to get to our hotel, but with cars parked on the side of the road, making a right turn was impossible - unfortunately we didn't realize that until we'd committed to the turn and cars were piling up behind us. It was a stressful situation to say the least. My advice: get a compact car.
One more thing to be aware of in Milan: much of the city center is off limits to cars. Other parts of the city only allow cars on certain days and hours. Your car rental place can give you a map that designates these areas.
After a few nights in Milan, it was off to Lake Como. It's about an hour and a half drive from Milan.
Lake Como is stunning and I could imagine relaxing in a lake house for a week and spending my free time trying to run into George Clooney at an espresso bar, but we kept our stay in Lake Como to a day trip. Our highlight was a short boat cruise around the lake.
We found a spot in Bellagio to relax with an affogato and spend our remaining time window shopping the streets of Como.
After another night in Milan, we drove about two hours to Turin. We only stayed one night in Turin, and it was enough. That's not meant as a slight to Turin - it felt more like the type of place you'd appreciate more if you lived there, rather than as a stop on quick road trip.
Our evening was spent watching a concert at the Teatro Colosseo followed by late night dinner at Turkish Bosforo, one of the many Turkish restaurants in the city.
The next morning we wandered down Via Giuseppe Garibaldi for some shopping and eventually gelato at Grom. The Matterhorn is a little over three hours to the north and it was tempting to see it, but our plans had us heading south, so we'll have to see it another time.
Our next night would be spent in Cinque Terre, but we had plenty of fun stops along the way. During this stretch of drive we noticed the car started displaying a little alarm with an espresso cup icon. I think the point of the alarm is to encourage the driver to not drive while tired, but we decided it meant it was time for an espresso. There were quick espresso stops every few miles along the highway, so we made a point of stopping each time the alarm went off: "un doppio per favore!"
Our first stop on the way to Cinque Terre was the port city of Genoa. We stayed just long enough to get some to-die-for focaccia, check out the original Eataly, and get a parking ticket. But for real, that focaccia was insane. I could usually take it or leave it with focaccia, but the Genovese focaccia was something else. Genoa is worth a stop for the warm focaccia alone. As for the parking ticket, I wondered if I'd ever end up having to pay it, but rest assured the bill arrived at my U.S. address. Having a translator on your phone to decipher the street signs is probably a good idea when road tripping through Italy.
About an hour south of Genoa along the Mediterranean coast is Portofino. If your goal is to get to Cinque Terra as quickly as possible, Portofino is a bit out of the way and not as stunning as the towns of Cinque Terra, so it's not the end of the world if you skip it. That said, I'm glad we made the stop. It's a fun place to dream of being rich. We had a quick meal along the waterfront with views of yachts and Castello Brown atop a nearby hill. Next up was Cinque Terra.
Cinque Terra consists of five small hillside towns along the Italian coast. The largest of these towns is Monterosso al Mare and that's where we stayed overnight. We arrived late in the evening. The road from the main highway down the hill to Monterosso is a little intimidating in the dark, so I'd recommend arriving before sunset.
You have a few options for checking out each of the towns - by train, by boat, or by foot. We chose a mixture of train and boat and I think that was the right decision. Train is easiest and quickest, but seeing the towns from the water is a great perspective. You can definitely take in all of Cinque Terra in one day, but I'd recommend getting there the evening before like we did just to maximize your time there.
With Cinque Terra in the books, it was time to head to Tuscany. On the way to our Tuscan destination we passed through Pisa and did the obligatory "holding up the tower" picture. We also grabbed some McDonalds in Pisa, which as weird as it sounds, is sorta a tradition of mine - get McDonalds once in every country.
In total, the drive to Tuscany took about 3 hours. We used VRBO to make a last minute booking and stayed in a stone house on a winery in Greve in Chianti, about 20 miles south of Florence (there are tons of great VRBO options in the area). We made this our base for the next few days while exploring wine country and a quick day trip to downtown Florence.
It was in Tuscany that I had the best meal of my life, but that's a story for another blog post. Most of my time in Tuscany was spent drinking espresso in the morning, riding bikes around the vineyards during the day, and enjoying wine each evening. It was bliss. And then it was back to Milan for my flight home. But not before one last stop on the way: Bologna.
The drive from Florence to Bologna takes just over an hour. Bologna is a must-stop as part of a culinary tour of Italy. We took a few hours strolling the town building up an appetite and then it was off to Trattoria Osteria Buca Manzoni for dinner. We ate lasagna verdi, tagliatelle ragu, and tortellini in brodo. The food was amazing and my only regret is that my stomach wasn't big enough for more. With our bellies full, it was finally back to Milan to end our trip.
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