Elaine_Abrams

We will be renting a car for 3 days out of Florance and are wondering if anyone has suggestions of where to base our travels. We would like to experience smaller villages, and locals if possible more off the beaten track. Also we want to spend two nights on the coast near CT or south so if anyone has ideas we would love to hear thoughts especially a good day hike on the coast. We will be following the rebuilding in CT to see if thats an option for end of April. Ciao! Elaine

yorkshire

Look into the Golfo det Poeti region and Montemarcello National Park peninsula. You get the coastal flavor plus lots of nice inland towns to explore.

Jean

Anywhere close to the CT will be too far from most of Tuscany for day trips, and three days isn't much time for even Tuscany alone. Late April might also be a little chilly on the coast, but that's a personal call. I'd just spend the three days exploring Tuscany from a single base, probably near Siena.

Where do you go after those three days?

Elaine_Abrams

We will be in Florance 3 nights, then picking up a rental car at the airport for 3 days in Tuscany. Still haven't decided where to stay while doing day trips. Then we were thinking of CT for two nights but am looking for another quieter place. Finally, two nights in Rome. Love all suggestions as we are flexible,adventurous,love to do some day hikes.

yorkshire

In seeing the rest of your plans, I agree with Jean that the Tuscan countryside might be a better bet than the coast. But unless you have been to Rome before, 2 nights seems like not a lot of time.
For hiking, check out these resources:
http://www.50hikesoftuscany.com/ (is also a book)
Walking and Eating in Tuscany and Umbria by James Lasdun

Elaine_Abrams

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. The hiking book looks like a great resource for us.

zeppole

Tuscany has a rather long coastline, plus islands, and if you want to get off the beaten track in Tuscany, visiting the Tuscan Maremma is an excellent way to both enjoy the coast and enjoy some of Tuscany's lesser known wine country, and then have an easy trip onward to Rome.

It is not always clear when people post that they like to get off the beaten track if what they mean by that is just something other than the tourist-choked-famous-art-citie or scenic attractions, or if what they most enjoy are places that are have the bare minimum of foreign tourists. Towns like Massa Marittima, Magliano in Toscana, or even Etruscan towns like Tarquinia have tremendous interest, zilch tourists and the rhythms of Italian life.

Here are links you might find interesting

http://www.discovertuscany.com/forum...-february.html

http://www.toscana-riviera.com/hiking-in-nature.html

http://www.casinadirosa.it/southern-...ttima-maremma/

http://www.casinadirosa.it/southern-...maremma-hills/

qwovadis

www.lucca.info my fav hike bike city walls vineyards food

www.torrettas.com or hostel5teree.com Manarola best

in cinqueterre.com for me a short train from Lucca.

Have fun!

annhig

zeppole and I are on the same page here.

head for the southern tuscan coast - southwest of Grossetto - and spend your time there.

plus it's a very short hop from there to Rome, either by road or by train.

Henry

Elaine,
This may help http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/tuscany/hs_planning.htm

Jean

Some logistic considerations: Unless you get a really early start from your Florence hotel, you won't be driving away from the airport until 10 or later. The drive to the coast is at least an hour (more like two hours if you head for the CT). If you return the car anywhere other than the Rome or Florence airports, your third day will likely be shortened to the closing hour of the rental return office and/or the time of the last desirable train to Rome. (Also pay attention to when the smaller-town rental offices are closed for lunch if you wanted to do an earlier drop-off.) Only your second day is a full day not involving renting/returning the car and getting somewhere by a specific time.

zeppole

It looks to me like the basic idea of the OP is not to go to the coast from Florence, but to spend some time in rural Tuscany, and then go to a coastal destination, maybe le Cinque Terre, but preferably something quieter.

Logistically, if le Cinque Terre stays on the agenda, despite the preference for a quieter place, it would make more sense to simply take the 3-hour train trip from Florence to Riomaggiore (in le Cinque Terre) and after that rent a car to visit other parts of Tuscany and make one's way toward Rome.

I may be misunderstanding some of the above posts, but I am puzzled by the statement that unless you return a car to the Rome or Florence airport, "your third day will likely be shortened to the closing hour of the rental return office and/or the time of the last desirable train to Rome."

Except for Saturday afternoons and Sundays, rental offices in Italian towns stay open until 7:30pm.

If one were in the Maremma, you could drop off a car in a Grosseto car rental office on a weekday after 4pm and find a train approximately every 40 minutes fro to Rome. Likewise Tarquinia. If you were to drop off the car in Orbetello, there is a train every hour to Rome after 4pm. One can spend most of the day touring, drop off the car and be in Rome for dinner.

Maybe I'm missing something.

annhig

Maybe I'm missing something.>>

no zeppole, not from where I'm sitting.

it looks like a good plan to me.

Jean

On planning a recent trip I found that quite a few offices close Mon.-Fri. at 7:00 p.m. (or earlier). The OP can use a drop-box at many agencies if she's comfortable with that.

constant

A charming local Tuscan village with one or two places to stay is Montefioralle http://www.montefioralle.info/ near Greve. This is within driving distance of the coast of the Maremma http://www.altamaremma.org/. As the other posters have indicated, the Cinque Terre are quite distance from most of Tuscany - I wouldn't advise trying to make a day trip there from central or southern Tuscany.

zeppole

Just to be clear, Montefioralle is not within daytrip driving distance of the Maremma coast. However, if you wanted to stay in Montefioralle for a few days and then move from there to stay in a coastal destination for a few days, it really doesn't matter whether you pick le Cinque Terre or the Maremma coast in terms of driving from Montefioralle. EIther will take the same amount of time. In le Cinque Terre, however, you should get rid of your car at La Spezia as soon as you can, and take the 3 hour train ride to Rome at the end. In the Maremma, you should keep it and eventually drop off your car in southern Tuscany or Lazio and take a 2 hour train ride to Rome.

I double checked the AutoEurope website about rental office hours in the Maremma, and only Grosseto offers full service in the afternoons, so Jean is right that for other offices, a drop box is the afternoon option. However, I want to correct my own post to say that Orbetello and Tarquinia no longer show up has having car rental offices, and that may continue until next spring. But there are rental offices in Civitavecchia or Piombino (both have a drop off box in the afternoons). Depending on how far south one is staying in the Maremma, driving the car to the Rome airport is also an option, with continuous operating hours for both the rental offices and the express train into the city. But you may incur an airport drop-off fee, and certainly the train tickets will be more expensive than from Grosseto.

Elaine_Abrams

We really appreciate all of your great comments. I am looking at the suggestions for places to go and how to plan the transportation. This is exactly the kind of inside experiences we were hoping fo. Thanks again for taking the time to help a fellow traveler.