My sister and I have 5 days in Tuscany in Oct. We love wine, charming towns, have a backpack, are lowbudget and don't want to stay in big cities. I've read good things about Lucca, San Gimignano, Radda in Chianti, Montepulcino and Cortona. We were planning either to stay in a couple of towns and bus out to other ones during the day, which would be good town with charming cheap accomodations to base ourselves? Or should we just move on each day..... or is busing each day too time consuming and just rent a car?

I would definitly rent a car for what you describe. If you wanted to stay in a larger city (like Florence) which has good bus and train connections that would be one thing. Then it's quite doable. But if you want to stay in smaller towns then it will be very time consuming to go from one town to the next by bus. Driving in that area is very easy and pleasant. And parking in small towns is usually not that much problem, compared to the larger cities where having a car is a hassel.

There is another post currently about 3 of the towns you mention. You might want to find that one and see what people are saying about them. I've been to San Gimi, Lucca and Cortona and liked them all.

I don't mind moving every few days so that's what I'd do but I think many people will tell you to pick one place and do day trips. Distances in that area are not that far. But on the other hand, staying in a town gives you a feel for it in the evening, after the day trippers are gone and for that reason I like to stay in a number of different towns.

I have just returned from Italy and we spent 6 days in Tuscany. I would recommend you get a car. The driving is easy (the navigating is a little tricky!)
We saw San Gim, Cortona, Montalcino, Pienza, Montepulciano, Siena just to name a few. Of these I would go back and spend a night or two in either San Gim or Pienza. We were disappointed with Montelpulciano. Cortona was and interesting stop and suited us as a day trip.
Pienza is such a pretty and peaceful spot. I would have liked to stay and lingered.
Overall my husband and I really enjoyed San Gim.
If you have five days you might want to split your time in two between San Gim and then one of the southern Tuscan towns.
Did a quick stop in Radda and it was charming too. (roads here are very windy and it takes much longer to get around).

Hi hart,

What you are planning is ideally suited to motoring.

Bus service between the small towns is infrequent.

If you are under 25, you might not be able to rent a car.


See
http://www.novarentacar.com/
http://www.autoeurope.com/
http://www.auto-europe.co.uk/

I checked a few auto prices and it was near $350 for 5 days, seems pretty high. I tried getting a bus map on the web but not much luck. We would hate to miss some of the out of the way places because we are a little cheap, but we did want to mingle with the locals on the bus.

$350 for 5 days seems too much. How hard did you search for better prices?

What is your goal? If you want to be sure to hit some 12 or more towns in 5 days, then yes, get a car. If you would be happy basing yourself in one charming town, spending one of your days there, and going out to visit four other towns, one on each day, then you can do very well with busses. I'd suggest Pienza as a really charming town. You can get to Siena in less than an hour by bus for other transfers and take busses to a number of other charming towns nearby. You can even hike if you want to a couple of tiny charmers in an hour or two and you'll see more of the Tuscan countryside than whizzing by in a car. Montepulciano is also easily reached by bus from Pienza. And I believe Montalcino (but I'm not going to guarantee that).

Driving in Tuscany can be wonderful, but until they've tried it without a car, people shouldn't be so quick to say "you must have a car". I've done both, and probably "experienced" Tuscany more when we didn't have a car than when we did.

Hi hartstrom,

What kind of car are you looking for? At http://www.novarentacar.com/ you can get a compact, manual transmission for 180E for 5 days.

Patrick,

Can you give hartstrom some help with finding bus routes and schedules?

I sent all the car/bus advise to my sister and she agreed to rent a car. From Ira's advise I contacted auto-europe uk whose rates were $200 less and I just rented a really small car for $165, novarentacar wouldn't let me leave it in Le Spezia. We really want to have 2 bases for the 5 days and drive in the hills to see the country from these 2 unknown places. Any great local, charming, small, cheap places? We are then taking the train from Le Spezia to the Cinque Terre for 3 days.
Thanks for all the help