Nine Bags, One Cat, and a One-Way Ticket to Trento

It’s happening…we’re in Italy and we’re thriving!

To be fair, it’s been some time since we first stepped foot here. It’s taken us about 2 months to properly settle in and only since last week ‘We’re going home’ finally means our apartment in Trento.

Anyways, this is the first piece in a series of posts describing our experience moving to and settling in Trento, TN, Italy. In this one, I want to focus just on painting the big picture so I might skip a few details here and there. But stay tuned for the upcoming posts describing why and how we left Chicago to restart in Trentino.

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Our (physical) journey to Italy started August 1st, 2025. We packed up our 9 bags in Chicago and got on an overnight flight to Venice. I’d love to say it all went smoothly but to be honest, moving by plane is not fun (more on that coming up soon).

We flew into Venice — not to squeeze in a quick gondola ride, but because there’s no real airport in Trento. Technically, there’s a tiny one, but nothing actually flies here. If you need to travel by plane, you’ll have to use one of the nearby airports — fortunately, the options aren’t too bad:

Venice (VCE) is about 2 hours by car, or 3 hours by train. It has decent international options and the drive is pretty scenic.
Milan has 3 airports and it depends on where you want to go.
- Malpensa (MXP) is the biggest of the 3 and it is the international one. It’s not exactly in Milan, but about 50km outside of the city. From Trento, it’s a little over 3 hours by car or just under 4 hours by train.
- Linate (LIN) is the true city airport and it’s mostly for the shorter flights around Europe. Although there are some oversea flights there too. It’s a little closer to Trento both by car and by train.
- Bergamo (BGY) is home to the lowcost airlines like Ryanair. If you don’t mind flying with the tiniest backpack possible and arguing about everything, then BGY is your spot. It’s also the closest to Trento - 2.5 hours both by car and train.
Verona (VRN) also has a somewhat decent airport. It’s the smallest of the above so the options are more limited but on the other hand, it’s the closest. It takes about 1.5 hours to get the both by car or by train.

We also found out that sometimes it’s faster and more convenient to take a Flixbus instead of the train when traveling to certain places in northern Italy. Just know that seats can sell out, so it’s best to book ahead.

Back to our story. We landed in Venice, not feeling fresh. Traveling with our cat, Chirpy, and 9 bags took a toll and our layover in Vienna wasn’t exactly smooth either. On top of that, one of our bags got lost. Sad. According to the latests stats, fewer than 1 in 100 bags gets mishandled, so you might say we got unlucky. But given the circumstances, 1 out of 9… not great, not terrible.

While Chirpy and Dayz were watching the bags, I went to file a claim for the missing one. The situation at the counter was not ideal. One person was on a coffee break, and the other was taking it reaal slow. After waiting about 20 minutes in line, I somehow managed to file the claim online and abandoned the counter in hope that the bag would find its way back to us.

Chirpy and bags — Chirpster on bag watch duty

Next, we needed to leave baggage claim. It sounds trivial until you realize that you have to go through the customs in one go — there’s no coming back. The bag-to-human ratio was definitely not in our favor, but after some back and forth, we managed to Tetris all the bags onto the airport carts and head for the exit. Quite a spectacle, but we made it through.

Once we were through and officially in Italy, I headed to the rental car counter. I was sleep-deprived and hanging on by a thread at this point, but since I’d booked everything in advance, I thought it would be a piece of cake. Wrong. Five minutes later (well, more like twenty — because the rental cars are nowhere near the terminal in Venice!) I’m standing at the counter, and the lovely lady is giving me the usual spiel: “Well, sir, you booked a 7-seater, but the two seats are foldable, so it’s technically a 5-seater. In that category, I have a VW Polo… so good luck with your bags.”

Knowing what was about to come next, I was not happy. “Or,” she offered — “for just a pound of flesh” (fitting for Venice, I know) — “I can upgrade you to a van that’s way too big for your needs.”

Desperate and defeated, I accepted. We finished the conversation with a classic: “The car is quite large, and the roads of Italy are rather narrow… you’d better get some insurance for this bad boy.” At this point, it was like stealing candy from a child. I caved and headed off to collect the car.

I made it to the garage and was greeted with, “Signore, the car is at a different location — Marco has to drive it here.” At this point, I wasn’t even surprised. Resigned, I slouched against the wall and waited. Marco was lovely, but he too was taking it reaaal slow, so I spent another 30 minutes contemplating my choices in a dark garage. Finally, the car arrived, and Marco cracked a good one: “With the full coverage, you don’t even have to take pictures — you just have to somehow make it to the drop-off location.” Thanks, Marco. Noted.

After this, I picked up Daysi and Chirpy from the terminal. We tossed all the bags in (with plenty of space left) and set out for Trento. If I were to do it again, I’d probably just book a transport from Venice to Trento and then rent a small car from there for a few days.

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The drive to Trento was pretty uneventful. The drive itself is nice and scenic as you pass through the southern part of the Dolomites. But at this point, we had not slept for over 18 hours. All I could do was try to force my eyes open and keep the car on the road. Two notable things from the drive were:

You have to pay tolls on the Italian highways. You get a ticket when entering the highway and you pay when exiting. You can pay by card or your phone.
Even the smallest gas station usually has a state-of-the-art espresso machine. So yeah, if you’re tired, don’t fret, the Italians got you covered.

Instead of boring you with the details of our 2-hour long drive to Trento, let’s talk about the city itself. Trento is one of the biggest cities in the northern, mountainous part of Italy. It’s home to roughly 120 thousand people and it’s the capital of the Trentino province. It’s big enough to have plenty of restaurants, bars/cafes, shopping, a university, museums, and good public transport. But it’s still walkable and doesn’t feel overly crowded (most of the time). It’s safe to say, thus far, we really like it.

Geographically, it’s situated on the Adige river and on one of the main routes connecting Austria with Italy via the Brennero pass. The city of Trento sits at the bottom of a valley at about 200 meters above the sea level, which, so far, has made for a very pleasing climate.

But don’t get fooled, there are some pretty big mountains on both sides. Mt Bondone, situated on the west side of Trento, reaches over 2,000 meters and is the nearest ski resort and is conveniently a 30 min drive away. On the east side we have La Marzola. Apart from stunning views of Trento, it also has a local via ferrata and the Cimirlo pass. The Cimirlo pass sits at 720 meters of elevation and has been an ideal testing ground for our alpine cycling skills. It’s been a tough start, but we’re getting there. Check out our post on that topic here.

As you can see on the little topo I made, from Venice, we came to Trento from the east. If you follow the Adige River south, you will be heading towards Milan. If you travel north, you will reach Bolzano in about 50 minutes.

After a few hours on the road from Venice airport, we arrived in Trento! Since we arrived on a Saturday and couldn’t move into our apartment until Monday, we parked it at Hotel Be Place, which was a super lovely find.

Parked car — The journey is finally over!

We were particularly big fans of their, breakfast, which included many local organic fruits and pastries. Sidenote, we have no affiliation with the hotel but can definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Trento looking for a quiet, simple yet clean and modern place tucked just above the historical city center. You’ll definitely find it on our list of Trento favorites (which is also coming up soon).

And allll of that to say, two months later, we finally feel at home — rental car fiasco, lost bags, and lingering sleep deprivation in tow.

A presto, spaghettos!