Italy Travel Answers

Don't bother with a car for such a short stay. Public transport will get you where you want to go easily enough, and Florence is pedestrianised in the centre so parking can be an expensive hassle. Train to Pisa and/or Lucca is easy. San Gimigniano by train to Poggibonsi then bus. Bus to Siena (unmissable, imo). Also bus to Volterra. Local bus up to Fiesole, the Etruscan settlement which preceded Florence with stuning views of the city. Have a look at the VT pages for all these place, because there are too many for just 3.5 days! Train times and fares in English here: trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.j... Siena bus timetable here (click 'Linea Firenze Siena): sitabus.it/wps/portal/DovePa... There is a good tourist info office directly opposite SM Novella station in Florence. They will give you all the info/timetables etc you need. If you google 'florence bike tour' you'll come up with several sites. Not sure whether I'd fancy riding a bike in Rome, but guided tours do exist there e.g. topbikerental.com/routes.htm...

Siena is accessible by bus from Florence - close to the railway station - circa 90 minutes each way. It is a much more authentic tuscan city. In terms of Tuscan villages / hill towns, take the train to Camucia and visit nearby Cortona. This is famous as the setting for several films, including my favourite Italian file. La Vita e bella with Roberto Benigni.Arezzo also was used to shoot some of the opening sequences. Lucca is a bit further away but worth seeing if you have the time - see trenitalia.it for the journey planner - remember Firenze for Florence. Don't rent a car because it is so dangerous.One last thing, please visit my favourite Italian restaurant, IL Due G near the train station in Florence, and let me know if it is still as wonderful.

It would be a good idea two days in Florence, one day in Siena + S Gimigamo, and one day Pisa + Lucca. have a look at mya pages because I visited those places just one year ago.

Don't be tempted to take the train to Siena, by the way: the railway station is qwuite some distnce from the historical centre and you'll need a bus/taxi (or have a longish walk). The bus from Florence is the best option.

Yes, you are right, i forgot it, to Siena, by bus, to Pisa/Lucca, train

Pity I couldn't spell my reply properly! :-(

Thanks, everyone! I will check out the websites and try to come up with a game plan. Scanos, I will check out that restaurant! If you have any other suggestions, please send them my way. Grazie mille!

It doesn't seem to me that you have 3 1/2 days, but only three days maximum, or, better put, 2 full days (the 17th and the 18th) and 1 half day (the 16th) and 1 quarter day (the 19th). If you add in running around all over the place to see this or that Tuscan location, you'll end up seeing nothing at all. To me, much of the charm of small towns in Italy (whether in Tuscany or elsewhere - in many ways, I prefer Umbria and Lazio) comes from being able to sit down, relax, have a drink at an outdoor table and walk in the evening promenade in a local square, where you go to see and be seen. It's hard to do this if you're on a bus or train all the time. So the first question I would ask is: do you really want to see Florence? The answer is, of course, 'yes', but when you make that answer, you necessarily are saying that you aren't going to see a lot of the Tuscan countryside. So, assuming a 'yes', try this: Apr 16 - arrive in Florence midday - go to your hotel or whatever, have a nice lunch, and go to places where you don't need timed tickets to get in. This could be walking to the Ponte Vecchio or to the Duomo or whatever. Have dinner and find a busy square (as J (leics) says, the city center has a lot of pedestrian areas now) where you can have a drink, and see and been seen. Apr 17 - in the morning, go to the museums that have timed tickets, like the Uffizi. Note that if you want to do this, that you need to make these reservations well in advance - you can no longer just walk up to places like the Uffizi and just go in. I don't know what other places in Florence require them (maybe the Accademia? I dunno - everything was wide open when I went long ago), but you can look for this as you browse through peoples' tips. Spend the afternoon looking at other places, or take the local bus up to Fiesole - and easy ride. Eat dinner in Fiesole or Florence and spend the night. Apr 18 - Take the first bus to Siena. Check in, drop stuff, and start hiking - you have the shell of the Duomo to see (it really is fascinating once you realize what you're standing in), the Square where the Palio takes place to walk around in, the two heads of St. Catherine of Siena to search for (oops, one relic too many), and a lot of nice streets to walk around. Have lunch, walk around, have dinner, and most importantly, spend the evening walking through the streets - it will be quite a different experience than Florence. Apr 19 - get up, go to church if you're so inclined (note that visiting churches is discouraged on Sunday mornings unless you're actually there for Mass), have an eye-opening 'espresso corretto' (espresso with a shot of brandy - yes, a few Italians do take this for breakfast on the way to work(!)). Pack, then head to the train station for the trip down to Sorrento. Note that the trip to Sorrento will be a bit complicated, because you will need at least 6.5 hours to make the trip. Oddly, because of the way that the high speed trains operate, in most cases, the fastest way to Naples (more on that in a minute) is to go back to Florence, so you could either take the train or the bus back to Florence (but check the bus schedule for Sunday morning - it may or may not be the full schedule). Alternatively, you can take a regional train over to Chiusi, then caught an InterCity (IC) train down to Naples, but since the IC train makes more stops than a Eurostar or an AV (Alta Velocita'), this short cut (look at a map) isn't any faster. Then, once you are in Naples, you'll have to figure out how to get to Sorrento. One easy way is to go downstairs in the main train station in Naples to the Circumvesuviana station (this is a private railroad separate from the national railroad) and take the Sorrento run out to the end of the line - you'll have to wait up to 30 minutes for the next train, and the trip takes an hour or so (look it up). Or, if the ferries are running - they are seasonal so you'd have to check - go from Naples main train station to the docks (short taxi ride), then take a ferry or hydrofoil across the Bay to Sorrento. In any case, you can see how this will take a good part of the day... If this isn't what you want, just keep in mind this: 'hit and run tourism' is bad, and you don't have as much time there as you think... P.S., it occurs to me that you could just stay in Florence all three nights and take the train to Naples from there...but then you would miss the experience of walking the streets of a smaller Tuscan town (and Siena is not the smallest by a long shot) in the late evening hours...you want to be there after all the tour buses doing day trips from Florence and Rome are gone - that's when you see the real town...and it ought to be fun on a Saturday evening... Bill

I spent 4 days in Florence and loved it. If you want to see a bit of the countryside, you could take this excellent wine tour. http://www.tuscantrails.com/ "Tuscan Trails Wine Tours" - Wine Tip by Karlie85

I'll second the suggestion to spend the full time in Florence. There is so much to see that you will have no trouble spending all your time there. Be sure you get advance tickets to the Uffizi. You can spend hours in line and still not get in. The Tuscan towns deserve a visit all their own so just tell yourself that you will spend your entire vacation in Tuscany in the future. Get an apartment in one of the towns and do day trips. We've stayed south of Florence and also in Greve. Greve is more centrally located but both worked very well. Roads are excellent and driving is not that bad so rent a car for Tuscany. You don't need it in a city, but it's great for exploring back roads and little towns and villages. For now, just enjoy Florence; it's a wonderful city with so much to see and do.

I'm not sure why I wrote "3 1/2 days" =) It does sound worlds better than 2 1/2 days, though! Thank you all again for the great advice. I especially appreciate the perspective on the train ride from Florence to Naples to Sorrento. I was thinking about 4.5 hours for the trip, so that extra 2 hours really makes a difference on what we can expect to see/get done. Thanks again! Rita