.... we have now decided we really want to see Tuscany and Venice and I so thinking to see the alps via Italy and possibly the Dolomites... I may only have 12 days after Paris to do Venice, Tuscany area and the Alps/Dolimites --every time I read about a city I want to go there and well its not possible to do all...
Yes, you should be able to do all 3 pretty easily - Venice, the Dolomites, and Florence or some part of Tuscany. They are not that far apart.
We have done timeshare exchanges to Italy twice now. In 2003, we spent 10 days in Rome followed by a timeshare exchange 1 hour outside of Venice (near Padua). We had rented a car and flew in/out from Rome. From Padua we were able to make daytrips to Venice, Verona, the Dolomites, Lake Garda + 1-overnight in a big loop that went to Florence (full day there) then to Pisa (overnight), then got up the next morning & did an all-day 5 city tour of the Cinque Terre (that Rick Steves made famous). Then, back to our timeshare arriving around midnight. We did a lot of driving on that trip, and we came back totally exhausted, but it was an awesome vacation.
Four years later we exchanged to Italy again, this time during Spring Break (2 weeks including Easter). The traffic was SO MUCH WORSE than it had been 4 years earlier at the end of June. We stayed in the same timeshare outside Rome for a week (yuck, won't do THAT again). Then, the 2nd week in a timeshare 30 minutes south of Florence. We had to rent a car again, since with timeshares on the outskirts, you need a car, plus we had our 2 daughters with us (both trips), & train tix times 4 are almost as expensive as renting a car. We were able to do lots of daytrips throughout Tuscany this time -- Lucca, Greve in Chianti, and several days this time in Florence. We also made another daytrip to Venice. It was about a 2 hour drive to Venice. Not bad, except I had a car accident
, so they added the 1,500 Euro deductible onto the cost of the rental car. Ouch! Should have purchased their "premium" insurance. Plus, we had to get a new rental car, but that only ate up about an hour of our vacation. Then, we were on our way again, but my husband had to drive the rest of the trip & I put one of my girls up in the front seat with him & rode in the back.
That said, driving in Italy is really stressful. The roads are super-small & the Italians are crazy drivers, and they constantly pass/overtake each other, even though they are going 60 mph coming straight at you. Crazy. Crazy. I recommend taking the trains when you are in Italy. Driving in France we did not find to be stressful, and pretty similar to the US. Although a good friend of mine travelling in the south of France was hit head-on by a drunken Frenchman at 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning. Her rental Mercedes was totalled, but she had gotten full coverage, so it was towed & they gave her another one. Luckily, neither she or the man who ran the stop sign were injured, and she is fluent in French, which was important for dealing with the french police. Another person I know killed a rental car in Italy by putting the wrong fuel into the gas tank. Regular into a diesel, or vice versa. Either way, had to have the car towed back & get a replacement.
If it is just you and your spouse, your travels will be way less complicated if you book hotel rooms in the city and just take the trains. Especially since this is your first trip. Trains are more relaxing, whereas driving in Europe is not relaxing at all. It definitely adds a certain amount of stress -- difficulty understanding foreign signs, difficult to find parking, pay for parking, find your way. It can even be impossible to pay for gas with your debit or credit card if you don't have a chip built into it like the Europeans do. Add in gasoline prices that are twice as high as ours + expensive Italian tolls for the Superstrada. With only 2 traveling it would be MUCH cheaper, and much more scenic to just relax, enjoy the sights, and let someone else get you there.
--- Rene