Base for 5 days in Northern Italy

Two Aussies would like to experience the natural countryside in Northern Italy in May 2018. Interested in walking trails - walk about 15kms a day - moderate grade, historical buildings, gardens, environment (birds). Prefer to stay in smaller village (visit the larger cities)and will be relying on public transport and hoping to find self catering accommodation.
Appreciate any suggestions.

Have not been there yet, (except the bigger cities, like Como, Milan, Verona and Venice) but is on my list and therefore did already some research.

The problem with smaller villages is, that their infrastructure is not that great, hardly any public transport,
for shopping people go by car to the nearest larger village/City and buy their stuff for a whole week,
and not many touristy things.

Having said that; what's "Northern Italy" for you ? When I first read it, Southern Tyrol poped into my mind, but Northern Italy is everything from the French Border to the Slovenian Border and probably as big as nearby Switzerland. So which part do you think of?

Tuscany could fit the bill. Plenty of nice countryside, and some cities that could be visited. Would probably be needing a rental car though.

self catering accommodation.

Please don't cook your own food in Italy. There are far too many excellent reasonably priced restaurants. The food is part of the experience.

There are ten thousands of kms of signmarked hiking trails all over "Northern Italy". If you plan to go into the mountains (provinces of Cuneo, Torino, Aosta, Biella, Vercelli, Verbania-Cusio-Ossola, Sondrio, Bergamo, Trento, Bolzano, Belluno, Udine), check the snow line (much higher at the end of the month).
The smaller villages in the provinces of Aosta, VCO, Sondrio, Bolzano have often excellent train or bus connections.

There are a zillion possibilities but perhaps Varenna on lake Como? There is also a book by Gillian Price on walking around (not literally) the Italian lakes if that's helpful. Varenna is very popular but is small and serviced by trains and boats so has good transport links. We stayed at Casa Luna and enjoyed it.

We've recently stayed in Bolzano, one of the major regional centres for the Dolomites, which is itself a major hiking destination outside winter. It was sensational.

We had a self-contained apartment in the old town, and it was very pleasant. And even in these quite big places (like Bolzano, Verona, etc), there is usually a pedestrian-only central area that creates a village feel.

However a genuine village in the heart of the Val Gardena is Ortisei ... which looked like hiker heaven in May. It was served by several bus services to Bolzano and elsewhere in the Dolomites. Very hard to saying anything bad about the town or the area. One image.

And on booking.com, airbnb.com, expedia.com, etc, you can select for apartment + kitchen, etc, which narrows your searching considerably.

meckerdv, I would like to know how you check where the snowline is likely to be. I am going hiking next year (but not in Italy) and would love to be able to figure out how early in the year I could safely hike. I live in a place where it never snows so this is new for me.

I expect he reads the reports at the local bureau of meteorology, like everyone else maybe could.

Jingili, so the local weather bureau would publish this, with historical patterns? If it says snow to, say 1000mts how do you know the height of your chosen destinations so you can make a comparison? Sorry if that sounds ignorant but it's something I've never looked at before. I will google the local bureau of meteorology site and see what I find. Thanks for your response - no need to be narky though.

I wasn't being narky at all ... if it came across that way - that is a problem of sentence construction!

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