Italian Lakes

[AnythingConsidered]

Hey all. Looking for some advice/recommendations.

Next August we would like to do a 1x week trip to the Italian Lakes. None of us have ever been before, but all love the idea. There are 2 families (4 adults and 4 children (12, 12, 7, 5))

Would like a house/villa with a pool &, preferably a bbq. We need to keep costs as low as possible (£1k-£1.5k per family for accommodation, flights & car hire) so self catering is expected. Would like small travel time to get to the lakes, cheap/free day trips etc.

Any recommendations for which airport to fly into, which lake/resort, day trips, websites to research, towns/villages to stay, some actual accommodation(!), tips to keep costs down etc?

Thanks all.

Have a look at flights to Milan Linate airport with Easy jet of BA. We've been to Lake Garda for the last two years and flights to Milan were far cheaper and it's an easy drive from there. Properties with their own pool can be expensive in this area, we had a good deal on accommodation, to give you an idea it was approx £500 per week for a two bedroom apartment with large shared pool.

We stayed near Toscolano Maderno on the west shore, it was a good base to explore from, Riva del Garda at the North is really lovely, some of the busiest resorts are on the south and west of the lake.
I found the trip advisor forums very informative, well worth a read.

With your budget it might be difficult to find everything you want. I really shopped around and we paid £600 for 4 flights last year, car hire was £150 per week (small car) and our apartment with shard pool was £500 - a total of £1250 for a week.
I used this site to book - have a look to gauge prices, school holidays will be peak prices.
www.housetrip.com/search-properties/toscolano-maderno/602121-7277006/