Northern Italy, Feb. 2005, planning blog
October 25, 2004 -- This trip has been on my mind for some time, I didn't know whether I would take the trip, and I was thinking about booking it well before I needed to. I learned before last summer's trip to Italy that my parents would be in a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center. I had thought that I would like to see Bellagio and the Lake Como area, a few other places in Lombardia, and Lugano as a chance to see an Italian-speaking area outside of Italy. In looking into the logistics of such a trip, I thought that I could combine these areas with a trip to Bilbao. Volareweb airlines connects Milan and Bilbao, a city that isn't as easily combined with a Portugal trip (something on my mind for the future) as one might think. The question comes up of when to book the air travel; I knew that at least I wanted to see Volare's winter timetable to see that they continued to serve Bilbao. It's a good thing I waited; the winter timetable shows no Bilbao service.
If I was taking a conventional round trip to Milan, it was easier to look for the best fare. For a long time I was seeing $660 on Orbitz, most notably on Delta via Atlanta, and around $470 (after a pre-tax quote of around $350) on 1800FlyEurope.com , with less convenient flights, on which I could not expect frequent flyer miles. I signed up for alerts on Travelocity and Orbitz for when the fare went down, and I started getting them two weeks ago. Then I was faced with the decision of when to book. Maybe things would get better later, and I wanted to wait at least one credit card billing period. There was a Delta fare of $504, which I reached the verge of booking; when I started to do this, the fare had gone up by $30 or so, not that much, but it swayed me to wait. During the next week, I kept checking; Onetravel.com showed fares under $500 on Alitalia, including some that were all on Delta metal; some questions there, including Onetravel making no promises about FF eligibility. When I finally reached the new billing period, I saw a fare of $520 on Continental and took it. Time will tell if I should have waited longer, but I think I snagged the last good fare during this sale. Since I want to go during weekends or adjacent, I think this was pretty good.
So now I need to plan for how to spend the time of my stay. I'm planning to be based in Bellagio and make excursions to Mantova, Bergamo, Lugano, and maybe Torino. I'm noting how much Bellagio apparently changes in the off-season; all the hotels listed in the Michelin guide close during the winter. Of these, the Silvio shows that it's reopening as I arrive. Then I got word that it's really out of town and not reachable without a car. I came across the Hotel Bellagio in town and am reserving it for my first couple of nights. I hope I can consider what's happening when I'm there and how the weather looks, and decide on the spur of the moment when to take my excursions even though they'd be overnight excursions. I'm thinking I'll take one two-night trip to Mantova and Bergamo. I might do Lugano at the end of my trip, since it seems to be easier to get to Malpensa airport from there than from Bellagio.
October 28 -- I came across this page for charting trips around Lombardia with different means of transport. This should be handy from Bellagio; even if I know I'm eventually getting a train, do I get it in Como (where there's a choice of F.S. or Ferrovie Nord trains), Lecco, or Varenna? I need to look at ferries and buses operated by different lines to reach these towns. The page doesn't show all the options for getting from Malpensa to Bellagio, though; that's something I've studied extensively; I may face the challenge of making the 1-minute connection between trains on different platforms at Saronno.
November 22 -- It's especially good that I didn't book the trip with the Bilbao return, because Volare has ceased operations. I've continued to see warnings about Bellagio in winter, but I have interest in seeing places in off season, and hope to find tolerable weather.
November 24 -- I have ended my participation on TheTravelzine; I'll tell the story separately, but it changes my perspective on arranging travel. I hope that, where I need help, I can find it on Slowtrav.
December 10 -- The Ferrovie Nord schedules for my travel dates have been posted, and it looks like, on my arrival at Malpensa, I'll have more than one minute to make the connection at Saronno to get to Bellagio.
December 13 -- Trenitalia has new schedules as well; I had plotted my trip well earlier than I needed; now I'll need to change things.
January 19, 2005 -- I've researched my trip and put several questions to Slowtrav here; there hasn't been much response, I'm hoping that it's because my questions were rather specialized, not something I should take personally. I don't know yet if I can go to Torino; it depends if it can be worked out with a friend. If so, I can see about taking the Milano-Torino train segment for 1 euro.
January 31 -- Scratch that last thought. It looks like the 1 euro special is no longer offered. I'm still wondering if the trip will have the structure I planned, or will need to change.