Last March I leant against a wall in Palermo, closed my eyes and breathed a deep sigh of relief. It was a balmy spring day in Sicily. Nothing exceptional — the temperature was still below 20C, but the timing was perfect. After a long winter in an underheated house the gentle, insistent warmth of that moment felt like a blessing. Lizard-like, I clung to that wall for 15 minutes.
Once again, that time of year is almost upon us. And if, like me, you’re yearning for brighter sunshine, lighter clothes and weather that begs you to spend the whole day outdoors, Italy is waiting. It’ll be looking its best too. If you only know the Mediterranean basin as a desiccated high-summer destination, the deep greens of April are almost shocking. So too the blizzard of wildflowers that blows across the country’s meadows. Everything is bolting, rushing to get its growing done before it gets too hot. It’s a privilege to share in the sense of plenty.
You don’t have to commit to a whole week. Here, we’ve gathered together some of the best short breaks to launch you into spring, travelling in late March, April or May. We’ve also added an armful of easy-to-reach hotels and cottages, and together they offer a delicious range of holiday experiences. In Amalfi, you can harvest lemons from a convent garden and make your own limoncello. In Sardinia, you can settle into a chic little lighthouse looking south across the sea. And in the Veneto you can putter into the Venetian lagoon in your own personal river cruiser and tie up on a quayside in La Serenissima.
There are walks aplenty too, village hopping in the Cinque Terre or hiking the forested Apennine foothills, as well as sea-kayaking, cycling and sailing trips. And if your idea of a spring break is simply to soak up the warmth like a sponge, then we’ve found some elegant hotel terraces in Piedmont, Tuscany and Sorrento. Imagine sitting on one of them now, turning your face to the sun and waving goodbye to winter.
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1. Boutique palazzo in San Cassiano, Puglia
Your spring break in Salento will take an elegant turn if you book into Don Totu. The former palazzo sits in the small town of San Cassiano and has just six luxurious rooms, as well as a lavender-fringed outdoor pool. When you get bored with wafting from sundeck to shade you can jump on one of the hotel’s (free) Vespas and explore. May will be the perfect moment. Daily highs are already averaging 22C, warm enough for some beach time, but not too hot for a day out amid the baroque flamboyance of Lecce.
Details B&B doubles from £295 (dontotu.it). Fly to Brindisi
2. Spectacular village-to-village walk in Cinque Terre, Liguria
Spring is the perfect time to hike Liguria’s vertiginous coast — with the broom blazing yellow on the hillsides and white calla lilies flowering in the ravines. Sea breezes will keep the temperatures manageable too as you follow a series of self-guided itineraries on this Cinque Terre short break. Disused railway lines, windswept ridges, lush sheltered valleys — you’ll hike them all during your stay, with pretty little Monterosso your base and fish suppers a constant theme. This is when the anchovies start arriving offshore. Expect to eat plenty of them with your pasta.
Details Four nights’ B&B from £655pp (macsadventure.com). Fly to Genoa
3. Travel by train to the Italian Alps, Lombardy
You’ll get two holidays for the price of one on this Lake Garda via Bernina Express break. The first is a rail journey from London, deep into the Alps — overnighting in the Swiss town of Chur. From here, you’ll wind through the last days of winter on board the Bernina Express, before leapfrogging into what feels like summer in balmy Desenzano del Garda in Brescia. The itinerary allows for three nights here before your flight home from Milan. Time enough for a sunset cruise, bracing hill walks and a parade of ice-cream sundaes.
Details Four nights’ B&B from £999pp, including rail travel and return flights (fredholidays.co.uk)
4. Sailing on the Amalfi coast, Campania
Your voyage begins with a Talented Mr Ripley moment, berthed in the harbour at Procida. The island’s houses run through an entire palette box of colour and have featured in this and many other films. Then, on board your skippered 51ft yacht, you’ll set sail for Amalfi, via hot-sea springs, sandy beaches and (perhaps) a day out in Pompeii. This is a hands-on trip, managing a kitty, shopping for groceries and preparing your own meals, and sharing with other passengers. So you can add a sense of teamwork to the pleasures of sailing one of Europe’s loveliest coasts.
Details Three nights’ room-only from £911pp (intrepidtravel.com). Fly to Naples
5. Motor your own boat from Casale to Venice, Vevento
Yes, you can motor into the heart of Venice — if you’re at the wheel of a boat, not a car. So board your craft at Casale sul Sile and after an hour or so of familiarisation you can putter down to the Lagoon within five hours, stopping at little restaurants along the way. There’s a mooring at the Marina di Sant’Elena at Venice’s eastern tip, but you can make the experience even more serene by overnighting on two other islands en route: Murano, home of the glass blowers, and Mazzorbo — connected to the multicoloured village of Burano by a wooden footbridge.
Details Four nights’ self-catering for six from £229pp (leboat.co.uk). Fly or take the train to Venice
6. Cycle through Chianti from Florence to Siena, Tuscany
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Rental of a 21-gear hybrid bike is part of the package on this short, self-guided bike tour. But with so much to see en route — as well as a few steep inclines — you might want the £31 ebike upgrade. Either way, a classic Chianti itinerary awaits: cycling ridgeback roads, sheltering from the midday sun in shady loggias and sipping red wine in Greve, your overnight stop between the two cities. Your luggage will also be transported ahead of you, thus lightening the load. Your first gelato, when you arrive in Siena, will be a sacred moment.
Details Three nights’ B&B from £750pp (utracks.com). Fly to Florence or Pisa
7. Cliffside luxury and lemons in Amalfi, Campania
Springtime is lemon season on the Amalfi coast. So a limoncello-making lesson is pretty much compulsory when you check in to the Anantara Convento di Amalfi, which reopened last year after a complete renovation. Set in a converted 13th-century monastery that seems to have been nailed onto the side of a cliff, the hotel has staggering views at every turn, not least from the convent garden, where you’ll pick your own lemons. You can join meditative guided tours of the church and cloisters, though you may prefer to sit on one of the terraces — limoncello spritz in hand — and worship the sun.
Details Three nights’ B&B from £810pp, including flights (britishairways.com)
8. Stay in a working lighthouse, Sardinia
The Faro Capo-Spartivento is still a working lighthouse and it’s been shining its light from the southern tip of Sardinia, Capo Spartivento, for 170 years. Now it’s also a boutique hotel, with six rooms, personalised menus and red-ochre walls to offset the all-encompassing sense of blue. Cagliari is an hour’s drive away and the flamingos at Porto Botte a similar distance. But really, with so many clifftop walks and secret coves on the doorstep who wants to day-trip? This is the best seat in the house.
Details Three nights’ B&B from £1,650pp, including flights and transfers (originaltravel.co.uk)
9. A dreamy stay for wine lovers in Menfi, Sicily
The Planeta family own vineyards in several of Sicily’s most significant wine regions, so when you sit down to dinner at La Planeta Foresteria — their gastronomic hotel in the west of the island — be sure to cede control to the sommelier. Among the revelations is the Metodo Classico sparkling wine, which bears the bright, mineral imprint of Mount Etna’s volcanic soil. Then follow the fine dining with a feast of archaeology at nearby Selinunte, overlooking the sea. It’s a far more atmospheric spread of classical remains than the crowded Valley of the Temples at Agrigento.
Details Three nights’ B&B from £723pp, including flights and car hire (justsicily.co.uk)
10. Kayaking the wild coast of Capo Caccia, Sardinia
The trip starts with a trumpet blast of scenery, courtesy of the towering cliffs of Capo Caccia — and continues with secret beaches, sea stacks and crystal-clear snorkelling. Based in a relaxed and friendly agriturismo guesthouse near Alghero, you’ll be paddling for three days with a guide, and getting to know the landscape in a way landlubbers can only guess at. Expect conversation to sparkle almost as much as the sea — Much Better Adventures attracts a fun-loving sort of adventurer. Dinner often stretches beyond midnight.
Details Four nights’ full board from £667pp (muchbetteradventures.com). Fly to Alghero
11. Wine and cooking in Morrona, Tuscany
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Here’s a bit of Tuscany worth taking home: the ability to cook some of its most delicious and distinctive food. Based in a villa at the hilltop Badia di Morrona estate, south of Pisa, you’ll join likeminded foodies for a wine-tasting, a market tour and lunch in a Florentine trattoria. Meanwhile, on the menu back at base are local favourites such as pici all’aglione (pasta with tomatoes, garlic and basil), cantucci biscuits and a rich, dark peposo stew. All of them made by you, of course.
Details Three nights’ full board from £1,099pp (flavoursholidays.co.uk). Fly to Pisa
12. Gorgeous gardens in Collazzone, Umbria
They call Umbria the green heart of Italy, so come in late April or May when it will be living up to its name, and plant yourself in the terraced garden of La Piccola. This chic, 1960s-flavoured two-bedroom cottage sits just outside the village of Collazzone with views across the valley to verdant hills. When you’re tired of looking, you can wander into Collazzone’s tight medieval core for an inky black caffè, or have a day trip to the Basilica of St Francis at Assisi, a 45-minute drive away.
Details Three nights’ self-catering from £1,079 (welcomebeyond.com). Fly to Perugia
13. Seaside history in Syracuse, Sicily
Syracuse may once have ranked among the most powerful of all Mediterranean cities. But the historic heart of it is tiny; a little nub of an almost-island where every street frames a sparkling view of the sea. In April, before the tourist tide washes in, it’s a delight. So book yourself into the friendly Algilà Ortigia Charme Hotel and wander every one of the narrow, sun-drenched streets around it. See those doric columns protruding from the side of the cathedral? They belong to the Greek temple of Athena, built about 580BC.
Details Three nights’ B&B from £580pp, including flights (expedia.co.uk)
● 20 of the best things to do in Italy
14. Wine-tasting in the Alto Adige, Südtirol
Oenophiles will love the new Sky Alps flights to Bolzano/Bozen, because spreading south of this pocket-sized city is one of the most interesting wine regions in the Alps. A place of brilliant sunshine, chilly nights and complicated geology, it supports an unusually diverse range of grapes. As the two names for every town and village suggest, it supports a bilingual Austro-Italian culture too. Base yourself in the designery Hotel Goldene Traube in Tremeno/Tramin and book an ebike (from £29 a day; ebike-dreams.com). Signposted cycle routes link many of the best wineries.
Details B&B doubles from £136 (goldene-traube.it). Fly to Bolzano/Bozen
15. Walk the secret Cilento coast, Campania
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More and more travellers are beating a path to Paestum’s temples to see their mighty doric columns stretch across the site of a pre-Roman city founded by the Greeks. Many fewer push further south, to explore the clifftop paths and secret coves of the Cilento coast. This self-guided Cilento Coast and Mountain itinerary lets you do both, with a former convent in the hilltop village of Rocca Cilento your base for much of the trip. Here evening feasts, tucking into local wines, cheeses, pastas and salami, are as memorable as the Unesco-protected landscapes.
Details Four nights’ half-board from £690pp (walkersbritain.co.uk). Fly to Naples
16. Great food and cave stays, Puglia
It’s not just the bread-making, olive oil-tasting and hands-on cookery classes that make this guided itinerary so eye-catching. It’s the taste you’ll get of Puglia’s most distinctive accommodation. En route from Bari to Altamura and back, you’ll overnight in a conical limestone trullo as well as a bedroom carved into a cave. The last day is typical of a programme packed with interest. In the final hours before your flight you’ll tour Bari by bike and learn how to make Puglia’s ear-shaped orecchiette pasta.
Details Four nights’ B&B from £634pp (untravelledpaths.com). Fly to Bari
17. Breezy seaside hotel in Sorrento, Campania
Love the sun but don’t want to bake? Then consider May in Sorrento, where sea breezes keep temperatures at a very manageable 22C. Day trips on the fast ferry to Capri beckon; so too do a tour of Pompeii or a train ride into Naples to see the Roman collections of the National Archaeological Museum. Check into the airy and elegant Grand Hotel Royal and you’ll enjoy grandstand Vesuvius views as well courtesy of its clifftop Terrasse Royal restaurant, or from down at the sea’s edge on its private pier.
Details Three nights’ B&B for £1,239pp, including flights (tui.co.uk)
18. Hillside gastronomic retreat in Cremolino, Piedmont
Sure, there’s lots of day-tripping to be done from Nordelaia. This is southern Piedmont — wine country — and vineyards beckon in every valley. But once you’ve wiggled your way up from Genoa airport (a 50-minute drive), you’ll probably stay put. A sense of place is the watchword in this quietly luxurious hotel that, as well as a boutiquey spa, an infinity pool and plenty of hammocks, has its own winery and an enormous kitchen garden. Lorto, its gastronomic restaurant, is famous for its barbecued savoy cabbages served with fermented cabbage powder, chicken jus and oxidised pear (six-course tasting menu, £94).
Details B&B doubles from £260 (nordelaia.com). Fly to Genoa or Milan
19. Hike the Apennines, Emilia-Romagna
In May there will still be snow on the Apennines’ highest peaks. But lower down, following the trails of this Quiet Mountains of the Apennines itinerary, you’ll probably be in shorts. En route you’ll stay in three and four-star hotels with your luggage transported ahead of you, and several scheduled lifts along the way to make the walking less arduous. Still, a proper challenge awaits on day three: a stiff 970m ascent of the Corno alle Scale, which takes in the pretty Dardagna waterfalls and a spectacular ridge walk.
Details Four nights’ B&B from £620pp (inntravel.co.uk). Fly to Bologna
20. Soak in a giant spa in Bardolino, Veneto
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Almost instant relaxation awaits on this Bardolino break, on Lake Garda’s eastern shore. The transfer from Verona airport takes just 30 minutes, and as soon as you’ve checked into the four-star Hotel Aqualax you can head straight for one of its eight pools — followed perhaps by a sauna or maybe a Turkish bath. Then, once you’ve washed your cares away, it’s time to explore. Vineyards, olive oil tastings, boat trips and guided bike tours are all close at hand.
Details Three nights’ B&B from £719pp, including flights (citalia.com)
21. Visit gorgeous gardens near Ninfa, Lazio
Although you’ll be based in the Eternal City throughout this guided Rome, Ninfa and Castel Gandolfo group tour, the focus is almost exclusively on gardens outside the Italian capital. The Pope’s parterres at Castel Gandolfo are an obvious highlight. There’ll be time too for the Renaissance fountains and terraces of the Villa Lante. But there’s no doubting the star attraction: Ninfa. Opened to the group by special arrangement, the gardens grow over the remains of an abandoned medieval village and will be blazing with colour in mid-May.
Details Three nights’ B&B from May 14 from £1,695pp, including flights (brightwaterholidays.com)
22. Admire the Palladian architecture of Vicenza, Veneto
Antonio Palladio may be the most famous architect of the Venetian Republic. But many of his finest buildings are not actually in La Serenissima — as you’ll discover on this self-guided tour of the city’s lush rural hinterland. Using the elegant Villa Michelangelo hotel in Arcugnano as your base, you’ll feast on the arcaded magnificence of the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza, the delicate Villa Barbaro in Maser and his perfectly symmetrical hilltop Rotonda. It won’t be hard to see why he’s been so influential. Holkham Hall, Dublin’s former parliament building, even the White House in Washington, are all inspired by his work.
Details Four nights’ B&B from £1,090pp, including flights (expressionsholidays.co.uk)
23. Hilltop haven on an organic estate, in Tuscany
Essentially, this is your dream Tuscan retreat, an hour’s drive from Pisa airport with nothing but forested hills and vineyards to look at from the edge of its infinity pool. It’s also a working estate. Borgo Pignano produces its own organic flour, cold-pressed olive oil, honey, fruit, chickens and pigs. So it’s no wonder its restaurant has a green Michelin star for sustainable gastronomy. In between meals you can go riding, explore the local nature reserves, or taste the estate wines. Or how about signing up for a private art lesson — and learning how to paint the soothing blues of a Tuscan sky?
Details B&B doubles from £300 (borgopignano.com). Fly to Pisa
24. Spa, beaches and sports, Sardinia
You could spend your entire break at Chia Laguna wafting between its sumptuous spa and its two sandy beaches. But spring is Sardinia’s most vigorous moment — and from April 25-28 this three-hotel resort is celebrating with a “Sports Week” of running, triathlon and open water swimming events. You’ll need a proven track record to enter the swimming races, but the running is open to all guests, and ranges from a competitive half-marathon to a 5km fun run (entry from £13pp; followyourpassion.it). After which you will of course deserve a full-body Tibetan massage.
Details Half-board doubles from £175 (chialagunaresort.com). Fly to Cagliari
25. Cycle for cheese from Bologna to Parma, Emilia-Romagna
It’s a good job you’ve got more than a hundred miles to pedal, over the course of three days. Otherwise there’s no way you’ll manage all the eating on this self-guided “Taste of Italy” cycle tour. It starts with dinner in a local Bolognese trattoria and continues with market tours, balsamic vinegar-tasting in Modena and Parma’s irresistible hams and cheese. Despite the distance, the cycling itself is easy: over ruler-flat terrain, on disused railway lines and country roads.
Details Four nights’ half-board from £1,665pp, including flights (cycling-for-softies.co.uk)
Where are you planning on visiting in Italy this year? Let us know in the comments below
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