rtwin80days

My husband and I are planning a 15 days (excluding international flights travel time) trip to Europe. We would spend 5 days in Paris and wish to combine it with a week in Tuscany and 2-3 days in Florence. Fly open jaw from NYC to Paris and Florence. Will travel between Paris and Florence through a flight or overnight train.

Tuscany - we would stay in a town or max 2 as base and do some day trips. Open to rent a car for few days if public transportation is sparse and having a car makes it easy to cover several smaller towns for a quick visit and drive by. Clarification - we are teetotalers, so Chianti region is not our main focus. I have spent 5 days in Florence earlier, including a day tour to few towns like San Gimignano, Siena, etc.

Questions:

1. How is Tuscany as a place to visit in late Oct / early Nov? I get it that it is difficult to predict the weather. But if it constantly rains, being in the countryside would be frustrating, especially if we are doing day trips to other towns and have a small window of time to enjoy the place. Also, we don't want to complicate driving because of rains in the countryside, we drive sparingly and are not used to it on a daily basis.

2. If at all that makes a difference, should we fly into Florence first and head straight to Tuscany on 22 Oct? Or should we reserve one week in Tuscany towards the end of our trip, so roughly 30 Oct until 5 Nov or so? We would fly back to NYC on 6 Nov from FLR or PAR. Factors to consider are weather (rains. cold, etc), harvests of produce, specific festivals, closure of restaurants and accommodations, etc.

StuDudley

Tuscany (especially the Val d'Orcia) is stunning in October when the fields are plowed - revealing colors from camel to rust - depending on the amount of iron in the soil. We were there for the last 3 weeks in October several years ago, and it rained often the first 10 days but not the last 10.

Our closest friends owned an apt in San Quirico - so we mooched off them quite often. They said that many places start to close in November.

You'll need a car to explore the wonders of the countryside.

We vacation in Europe twice a year for 1 month each. We like direct flights home - so that when we're tired at the end of the vacation - we can spend as less time as possible in travel. Thus I would start the trip in Tuscany and end in Paris (I assume you'll need 2 flights to get to Florence and 1 flight from Paris).

I have a 20+ page itinerary for Italy with a heavy dose of Tuscany. I've sent my various itineraries to over 5,000 people on Fodors (really!). If you would like a copy, e-mail me at [email protected] & I'll attach one to the reply e-mail. We'll be in Tuscany next year at the same time you'll be there.

Stu Dudley

StCirq

How many threads are you going to start asking the same questions?

The weather is totally unpredictable. Nobody can help you with that except to give you generalizations - you have chosen to travel in a fairly cold and often rainy time of year. It could be nice. It could be horrible. If you do this, take appropriate clothing and deal with it.

Things will be closed. Not all of them of course. People live in these areas. The landscape will not be what you imagine as the green rolling hills of Tuscany. It will be bleak most likely.

Festivals you can easily figure out on your own by googling the official websites of every town/village/city you want to visit. Same with harvests. Surely you can assume that mushrooms and root vegetables will be prevalent.

It doesn't matter whether you do Tuscany first or last because no one can possibly predict what the weather patterns will be this far in advance. Just make a plan for heavens' sake, then deal with it.

rtwin80days

Thanks StuDudley for your kind and patient response. Sending you an email shortly and thanks in advance for sharing your itinerary.

StCirq, I started a new thread only to get more targeted insights on Tuscany by tagging Italy and specifying Tuscany related queries. My last thread was regarding where in Europe do we go etc. I am keen to wrap up my itinerary and new bookings asap as well. We lost thousands of dollars on our last cancellations and we hardly have time for planning the next one. I am grateful for all the help I am getting on Fodor's forum from all.

Jean

We have traveled almost exclusively in the last two weeks of October for 30 years and have had very good weather in Italy over several trips. We did get a couple of hours of rain in Florence and at Lake Como but not enough to alter plans. "Things will be closed." Not sure what that's in reference to, but we haven't noted closures other than in typically summer resort destinations, like parts of Lake Como, Amalfi Coast, Sardinia, etc.

Weatherwise, we've had rain many times while in Paris/France at that time of year.

FYI, the clocks change on Oct. 30th.

rtwin80days

Wow Jean, that is a big reassurance, thanks for sharing your experience. We are prepared for inclement weather in Paris. There are so many things to do indoors that we are not worried. Tuscany being countryside, it is a greater concern. I hope we can weather the occasional rains and carry on with our broad plans.

jamikins

We have spent two weeks in Tuscany over the week of NYE and had mixed weather, but nothing that would slow us down. Some things are closed and I am told the weeks we have been are busy for winter so more may be closer in November.

Here are our pictures

https://flickr.com/photos/[email protected]

rtwin80days

So finally our tickets are booked (again!). Fly in Paris and fly out Florence. I wish this trip goes through. Lots of details to be worked out now. Thanks all for the help. I shall be back with more questions.