Piemonte questions

Just thinking about some options for a Europe trip this fall (late October). Probably about 2 weeks, maybe a few days more. Something like:

Fly into Malpensa, hold our noses to go through Milan Central on the way to Venice.

Venice 3 nights

Train to Turino, rent a car and spend 3 nights in Piemonte somewhere.

Train to Basel or maybe Geneva, somewhere we can rent a French car, then 3 nights in Alsace.

Over to Paris for whatever days remain, fly back from CdG

Very rough thoughts so far, also considering heading from Venice up to Vienna instead, but I think we’ll make that another trip entirely.

We’ve been to Venice. If you have at least 3 full days, it’s a good start.
We rented a car at Malpensa ( I hate writing things out, so lets say MXP). If you can drive a stick, you’ll save $$$ on a car rental.We did the drive to Turin/Turino. It’s where the first Eataly opened. There’s one downtown that’s small, but the one slightly west ( a couple of subway stops) is 10’x bigger than New York. I’d spend a minimum of a day in town, if not more. The ride to whereever you stay in the Piemonte region is all on super highway. We spent 4 days and 3 nights at an Air B n B. The region is lovely, and I hope to return one of these days.

Remember to keep in mind travel time. I think your trip is aggressive. I think your time in CDG neener will be spent at the airport.

Here’s where we enjoyed a lovely dinner > RISTORANTE TRATTORIA DELLA POSTA. This was a board recommendation.
http://www.trattoriadellaposta.it/ It’s in an elegant house. FYI, we were there in November. It took us 60 minutes to go 3 miles. We drove ‘in the soup’. I’ve never seen fog like that in my life.

Ha! I can even drive a right hand drive stick [dance-clap.gif] Driven thousands of miles in UK, Australia, and NZ. Actually, my current 2003 Honda is the first automatic I’ve driven since giving up my '66 Mustang in 1979.

Thanks for the advice so far [cheers.gif]

why would you want to rent a French car? French cars suck. Rent a German car, especially in Switzerland.

Milan is actually a very cool city and I can recommend some places to eat and drink there if you give me parameters. On the way to Venice there are some excellent producers and restos too. As I’ve said elsewhere, just have a backup plan if Venice is not your cup of tea.

For the Piedmont. I’ve had good results staying near the town of Barolo. Look for Agriturismo there.

Where in Alsace will you be staying? it’s easy to get around but the towns are fairly different and it’s always nice not to have to drive after your last winery visit.

Paul, I mean “French” in the sense that I will return it to CDG, so don’t want the hassle/expense of having a car that originated in another country. Maybe things have changed, but it used to be a lot more expensive to do that.

Used to spend time in Milan on business years ago. Haven’t been recently, but even if it’s improved a lot I won’t be spending any time there, given the other places I’d rather get to. I followed the other Venice thread, and note your thoughts there. I’m not good with crowds or tourists, but it’s a bucket list place we need to go to, so I think we’ll do it. Plus it turns out we can fly into Venice directly pretty easily for low miles.

Haven’t decided where to stay in Piedmont or Alsace, definitely interested in suggestions, and also searching through previous threads on those areas. Right now just trying to nail down the end points so I can book flights, and the most efficient path to get from Piedmont up to Alsace. Could go through Lyon, Geneva, Basel, kind of depends on the train schedules I guess.

the food in Lyon is incredible, should you be able to swing a lunch there.

We stayed in Alsace last year (Strasbourg) and did a lot of exploring throughout Alsace and then went to Lyon for a few nights and then up to Burgundy for a couple days and then 2 nights in Paris and home from there. All of the little towns are great but would definitely recommend Riquehyr. Probably spelled that wrong. So pretty and less touristy than Colmar.

Going to Piedmont in less than 2 weeks actually so depending on your trip, I can come back with some recommendations. We are staying at the Castello di Sinio, a recommendation from several here.

Rich, would love to hear any more info on what you did and liked in Alsace. And please report back on your Piedmont experiences, would love to hear about those as well! Right now I’m just pinning the end points, plenty of time to finalize the details later.

Tickets booked. Amazingly, 2 round trip tickets on AA for 105k miles. Not bad. Arrive Venice 10/26, depart CDG 11/11. Help me fill in the rest!

U were driving In 1979?
Why do I have the impression you were late 30s/early 40s? Maybe I’m confusing the Alans of the board! :wink:

To add some value. If u fly into Venice. Give it an extra day. U will be tired from the travel. Venice is a fun place if you’ve never been it’s worth the time.

Coach? Where have I gone wrong. [swoon.gif]

Sadly, I don’t travel on business any more to accumulate miles, so I’m forced to fly coach. That’s OK, I’ve flown 3M+ miles in my career, and most of those have been coach. We can have a separate discussion on the decadence of air travel these days, I can’t justify seating configurations any more, especially not if you take into account CO2 emissions.

In general my advice is always to have less travel between bases except for the very rare scenario where that travel would be enjoyable in its own right, e.g. a short cruise or comfortable & fast train journey. Too many tourists try to cram too much in, not realising that they can waste many hours packing/unpacking checking in/out, travelling rather than sightseeing.

So to specifics

  1. Milano Malpensa → Venice → Torino. This has unnecessary backtracking. Fly into Venice, Treviso, or I suppose even Bologna. Better to switch Piemonte and Venezia in your planning. So you fly into Malpensa, hire a car to visit Langhe (or even easier, Gattinara/Ghemme are barely 30 mins away and I can recommend a good agriturismo in Ghemme, though Gattinara is the more visually appealing). From there drive to a suitable drop off at a station with fast trains to Venezia. Train to Venice and on foot / boat whilst there. Then, partly against my own advice above, take the DIRECT train from Venice to Paris (or somewhere on that train route). This I justify as a Eurostar style train journey is an event in itself, and you can pack a fancy picnic with selected bottle(s) of wine to help make it feel special. Assuming you take the train all the way to Paris, only hire a car on leaving Paris and choose a location that allows for an easy drive to the exit airport in France. Ah just seen that you’ve booked the flights so either have somewhere easy like Reims (Champagne) as the extra location, or find somewhere on that train route to stop

  2. Try to get a balance in any holiday, and in this I’d say you have much that is positive. From hills and wine in Piemonte, to the touristy but unique Venezia, to the big city of Paris, so choose that final location (e.g. Alsace) so you feel like you’ve got something different again.

  3. Consider reversing the above route. This means that you’ll only add the wine bottles to your luggage once you’ve finished with trains, so no lugging them around bustling train stations. Less worry as well about the ‘precious’ cargo being heat damaged or smashed en-route. Either way, finishing the trip by dropping the car off at the airport is a good plus.

  4. It is a lot of locations and some long transfers. In terms of transfers they’ll take more than a full day out of your holiday. If at all possible, look at scrubbing Venezia, spreading the remaining days over the three locations and hence avoiding backtracking. Disclaimer - away from wine forums, I post on SlowEurope, a site that generally favours more time in each place, to get more holiday time and less rubbish transfer time. For me, looking at such distances and with flights already booked I’d want to do just Langhe or North Piemonte as 1 week and Paris (with a day trip or two) for the 2nd week. Where the transfers are shorter I’ll edge down to a minimum of 4-5 days in one place and there is always plenty we miss / want to return for.

  5. Happy to give views on Monforte, Santa Vittoria d’Alba, Treiso, Serralunga as places to stay & feedback on places we’ve stayed there. The place near Annunziata (La Morra) has closed now but I can still comment on the village. Plenty of very good options for every budget in the region, so set the price and any specifics you’re looking for and the collective experience here should be able to help. Otherwise, Langheroero.it website is a great tourist board site with extensive listing and they’re happy to make suggestions themselves.

Bite the bullet and rent the car once. Two 3 day rentals is likely more than a 7 day rental, prior to drop off fees.

Ian, thanks for the feedback. Pretty experienced traveler, so yeah, I know the pitfalls of trying to fit in too much. But having done so much travel, and not yet visited so many places, I also want to make sure to check a few off, and use that to decide whether to go back for longer stays in the future. Have done Eurostar in both directions a number of times, Milan-Zurich number of times, Lyon-Paris (not to mention Tokyo-Osaka, Tokyo Niigata multiple times), Germany, Switzerland, etc.

Anyway, just above your post you’ll see that I’ve already heeded some of your advice. Flying directly into Venice (still deciding how long to stay there, probably just a couple nights), then train to Turin (current thinking). Hang out around there a few days with car. Train to Basel. Get car, tour Alsace, back through Champagne, drop car at CDG, remainder of nights in Paris.

Barry, I’ll be looking at both options. With the cost of European gas and road tolls, it’s not so obvious. And any time I’ve looked at renting in one country and dropping in another, that’s been a huge penalty. But will definitely consider. Not having to schlep all our stuff through train stations is a definite plus if I can get a single car for much of the trip.

Alan,
I’ve flown into Zurich and picked up a car there, then driven through Alsace and Champagne, dropped the car in Reims and trained to Paris. The drop charge was insignificant, especially given the value of time while traveling. I find dropping cars in Paris to be a pain in the ass. Dropping in Reims at the train station and training to Paris will save time and is more convenient than driving to at CDG and then going into Paris.

I also agree with Ian about cramming too much inconvenient travel into a short trip, but ymmv.

Thanks Mark. Good idea about dropping in Reims. What company did you use? I just looked at Avis (using my corporate rate, which has been pretty good, even in Europe), and they wanted well over $1000 more to rent in (e.g.) Torino, and drop at CDG. Several years ago I found that renting on the French side of Geneva airport saved me quite a lot compared with renting in Switzerland. I’ll look into the European vendors as well, maybe they are better about this.

$1000, ouch.