City Guide: Munich to Venice in 9 Days
Day one: Land in Munich
Munich is a direct flight from several major US cities and it’s very central in Europe! AND you can rent a car there that can be dropped off in another country/city. We rented from Sixt and it was super easy. You do need an international drivers license which you can obtain from a AAA office near you. It’s basically just a translation of your US license.
We landed at 2pm and immediately drove to Innsbruck, Austria. 1) It’s a spectacular drive and 2) it’s only about 3 hours. Highly recommend stopping in quaint Garmish, Germany! Rumor has it that Mukke Fucke is the place to eat!
Dinner in Innsbruck was pork schnitzel, of course. We walked all over town that evening and enjoyed the architecture, the lively restaurant scenes, and the gorgeous river!
Day two: Innsbruck to Ortisei
Continued exploring central Innsbruck on foot, did a decent amount of shopping. And ate some pretty weird food at a vegan restaurant by accident. What a gorgeous city!
We bought these motion sickness glasses--they actually work!
After lunch we headed out in our car to our next destination: the Dolomite mountain town of Ortisei, Italy. It was another 2.5 hour ish drive through the Eastern Alps, and it was stunning! Interestingly, this part of Italy was under Austrian government until the late 1800s, so there’s a major Bavarian flavor to the architecture, the food, and the language. All the signs were in Italian, German, and English.
Ortisei is a small resort town that is just picture-perfect Bavarian tourist fodder. There was so much to do here! We stayed in a charming, centrally located AirBnB and it had a KILLER view but no air conditioning. And Europe was having a particularly rough heat wave when we were there. Think highs in the mid-90s. One plus: this apartment had a washing machine so I did a couple loads of laundry to start fresh for the rest of the trip.
Dinner was Mauriz Keller and then we stopped at a wine bar and did some choice people-watching on the street.
Day Three: Seceda and the Dolomites (Ortisei)
The amazing thing about hiking in this area is that you just hop in a cable car, and they tow you to the top of the mountain, and then you hike at that altitude—you don’t have to do that much elevation gain unless you really want to.
The other INCREDIBLE thing about hiking in the Dolomites is the refugios–little hospitality outposts where you can get anything from a pretzel and a beer to a full fine dining meal. They have amazing views, but you have to earn them by hiking from hut to hut. There are lots of really cool hikes to go on.
We hung out at the top of Seceda, ate maybe the best meal of the trip, and enjoyed the view all afternoon. Baita Sofie Hutte
That night, we went to our first-ever Michelin star restaurant. It was….ok. Kinda weird and not busy at ALL which we thought was strange. Ristorante Nives
Overall, I’d love to go back to this area and experience allll the refugios and do a lot more hiking.
Day 4: Ortisei to Lake Garda/Sirmione
Another 2.5 hour drive to the little resort town of Sirmione, which is at the end of a tiny strip of land that juts out into Lake Garda. This is a pretty large lake, with ferries that criss-cross from town to town.
Getting to our hotel required driving THROUGH the gates of a castle. It was a little harrowing, but we made it.
This was by far our favorite lodging of the trip. Villa Cortine is a former palace/summer home converted to the nicest hotel imaginable. It was almost like a White Lotus situation here. Lots of fancy cars in the finely graveled parking lot, and lots of “is that the nanny or the nonna?” situations happening at breakfast.
Day 5: Sirmione
Since this was the halfway point of the trip, and since the hotel was so gorgeous, we spent a lot of time sitting by the pool and swimming in the crystal clear waters of Lake Garda.
There’s lots of walking to be done here, and we had several meals in town, but I’ll tell you: it was quite touristy and we weren’t super impressed with the food. It’s very possible we just didn’t find the good places, but it was lackluster for sure.
Day 6: Sirmione to Verona
We started the day off with another breakfast al fresco, then stashed our bags with the front desk and headed to the thermal hot springs spa. Aquaria Thermal Spa makes use of the volcanic activity in the area to provide the curative waters. This was a super fun stop! We probably only needed 2 hours there. There’s not much to do but soak, but it was super fund.
After the spa, we drove about 45 minutes to the Verona train station, where we left our rental car. We took an Uber to the middle of town where we stayed, and quickly set off to explore the posh shops and medieval streets of Verona.
What a gorgeous town! This was the Italy I had been craving. Lots of marble and stucco and you can really see the impact of the renaissance here. And we finally started finding some great food here.
The Palazzo Maffei was great–and air conditioned!
Day 7: Verona to Venice
We explored quite a bit of Verona. Checked out the museums, a couple of churches, and again: food! Here are a few of the places we loved:
Antica Bottega-famous old place
La Bottega della Gina XXL: This is an AMAZING tortellini joint!
Late in the afternoon we hopped on a Tren Italia train and headed to Venice. It rained right up until the moment we stepped out onto the dock at the Vaporetto station in Venice.
Day 7: Venice
Oh man, I LOVE this city! It’s so old and mystical and magical. Believe the hype: it’s amazing. Yes, there are hordes of people. But not everywhere and not all the time. We had not problems getting taxies, sitting down at dinner, or getting into the museums.
By far my favorite experience of our whole trip was a 3 hour guided food tour. Our host took us to all the best local places. He peppered the tour with history and generally answered our nosy questions about what it’s like to live as a native in Venice.
Day 8: Venice and Murano
Murano is the famous island where the glass-blowers have their workshops. This is a tradition dating back millenia, and seemed like a cool thing to check out. We were pretty disappointed with the cookie-cutter shops, the chintzy “demonstrations” that cost $12 Euro to witness, and generally the feeling that it was all a show, and not authentic. Maybe we just didn’t know the places to go? It also took us a REALLY long time to get there because we were starting on the far south side of the city, and Murano is due north. So an hour and a half on 2 vaporettos later, and we were a little cranky and hard to impress.
Obligatory Aperol Spritz!
Day 9: Venice>Home
I woke up early and went on a big walk. I knew we’d be sitting most of the day and embarking on a longgg journey. Venice is just so beautiful. I know it’s “so crowded” but I can totally understand why. It’s magical. You have to go!
A few words of advice:
- Don’t go in July. I don’t even want to tell you all the ways that I used a Handker bandana to deal with sweating my butt off. It was pretty brutal.
- Ask the locals where to eat. The places that Google recommends aren’t all that great.
- Take a tour! We loved having a guided tour one day.
- Make yourself a google map before you go, and download it to your phone in case you don’t have great cell service.
- Just GO! It can be hard to figure out, but the memories are 100% worth it.
- Credit card points for the win here! We got our flights and all the lodging paid for with credit card points. My favorites are the Chase Ink Preferred and Southwest cards.
- Definitely take as many bandanas as you can fit! They're so great for keeping your hair out of the way, mopping up some extra "schvitzing", as a napkin, to bundle your jewelry in, and to give away to new friends!
Till our next Handker adventure....
