Any question answered...

I was in Padova last week which is a short train/bus from Venice and absolutely beautiful and can be explored by bike. Venice is kind of nice and all but so touristy, half a day walking over a thousand bridges was enough.

I love Venice. Spent a very happy few days there with my mrs. We went in february or march, when there were no tourists, we went on LastMinute.com and rented a huge apartment just off St Mark's square for the cost of a room in a Holiday Inn, and had the most magical time. The whole city was ours. It was just wonderful.

Italy, especially the North, is brilliant generally. Milan is spectacular, though it gets so hot in the summer that most of it shuts down in August while the residents go on holiday somewhere cooler.
I had a great couple of weeks on Lake Como, renting speedboats, eating delicious food, getting sunburned. I had less fun in the south. The attractions of the Amalfi coast are real though, Sorrento, Positano, plus Herculaneum and Pompeii. But outside the tourist places it's less salubrious. Muggers and pickpockets on the Circumvesuviana, taxi touts, all that dodginess. Naples in particular is a total and utter shithole.