Planning a trip to the Italian Lakes

[Wanders from Glos]

Agree, we’ve just booked Camping Parisi for the start of May. Looks like a small site on Lake Maggiore. Plus a 2 night stopover in Strasbourg.

Yes we’ve looked at that one, Not booked anything yet though.

 

[Barryh]

We stayed at Camping Parisi a few years ago. Baveno is a lovely town with a nice promenade, bars, restaurants, boat trips etc. The campsite is fine, a bit cramped on the ACSI pitches, but nice enough. There are better but more expensive pitches overlooking the lake. We stayed here to go the Italian F1 Grand Prix at Monza. The train from Baveno goes to Milan.

 

[Wanders from Glos]

We stayed at Camping Parisi a few years ago. Baveno is a lovely town with a nice promenade, bars, restaurants, boat trips etc. The campsite is fine, a bit cramped on the ACSI pitches, but nice enough. There are better but more expensive pitches overlooking the lake. We stayed here to go the Italian F1 Grand Prix at Monza. The train from Baveno goes to Milan.

A trip into Milan sounds interesting.

 

[Paul and Val]

We have been to Lake Como twice and really enjoyed it. Both times were in a car however not a motorhome.
I would describe myself as being a very confident driver but I would to be frank, be a tad nervous driving a motorhome around the lake.
It is a great place however and the Italian espresso? the best coffee drink in the world.
Have a safe trip.

 

[Wanders from Glos]

Spent a few hours doing some research and as some of you have suggested, the campsites around Lakes Maggiore and Iseo are quite booked up. We have only ever booked a site in Europe once before and that was on Ile de Ré and then only on day before arrival. But I can see there is no advantage to being precious about it seems to us if we want to go to the Italian Lakes during the German holidays, then we will have to book.

So we have booked four nights at Camping Village Parisi on Maggiore. On lake Iseo there was very little choice left, I think because of the Bavarian school holidays and in the end we have booked four nights at Camping Covelo hopefully with ACSI. To be fair both sites get generally good reviews. There are three days between the two bookings and we are going to take our chances on extending a stay or perhaps visiting somewhere else between the two such as Como and Bergamo. We plan to visit Lake Garda too, but won't attempt to book until nearer the time as it will be outside the holiday period and we don't know how things will unfold, we might be bored of lakes by then!

Thanks everyone for your advice so far, but do keep it coming. I'll have a stab at doing a tour report when we go.

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[Pappy]

We have done a bit of Northern Italy.
Check out Glossglockner for route over Austria (you pay for the road but avoid the Go box or vignette)
Lago di Fusine free stopover in stunning surroundings on Slovenian/Austrian/Italian border. (A top 5 aire)
Search for "sundial" or "sun dial" and you ll find a lovely walk near Venice with 100+ sundials and it is well worth it.
Lake Garda has a fascinating cycle route ON (2km) Lake Garda that would be on our hit list.
We also stayed around Polcenigo at a friends house but there is a bit to do around there.

Can I ask about the Glossglockner please?
I was going to avoid Austria on our way to Croatia as everything seemed difficult when taking a motorhome. If there's a route that avoids all this and you just pay a fee then might be worth another look.

 

[suavecarve]

Can I ask about the Glossglockner please?
I was going to avoid Austria on our way to Croatia as everything seemed difficult when taking a motorhome. If there's a route that avoids all this and you just pay a fee then might be worth another look.

I know it was reasoning for us to avoid Austria but, (and I am going back maybe 7 years) it was a piece of wee wee.
It takes some working out and what I would do is choose a route from Calais to the town north of the GG say Rollberg on google maps and use the option not to have any tolls. Then do the same on the other side to drop into Italy

Heres the idea for the northern end.

 

[suavecarve]

And the lower end,
So by my reckoning and memory you can now cross Austria for the price of the Glossglockner about 35 euros Pappy