Day trips from Florence
 

We'll be in Florence for 8 days in early June, which will be our longest stay there. We've been to Siena before but none of the other nearby places. I'd appreciate hearing suggestions of good day excursions. We won't have a car.

How much time did you previously spend in Siena? I was there for 2 nights and certainly could have spent longer.

San Gim, Lucca, Piza, Modena? Have you been or looked into them?

Fiesole is a cute little town really close to Florence - easy to get to by bus if I recall correctly.

Lots of trains to Pisa if you haven't been there.

Sienna for sure

A trip to Pisa can easily be combined with Lucca (go directly to Pisa and back via Lucca). Check at wwww.trenitalia.com/tcom-en for schedules (and amazingly cheap tickets on the Regionale trains).

You can visit San Gimignano by bus from Florence, with a change in Poggibonsi.

I really like Arezzo, a small Tuscan city that doesn't get too many tourists. If you are a fan of early Renaissance art, there is a beautiful fresco cycle by Piero della Francesca in the church of San Francesco in Arezzo. They also have an interesting outdoor antiques market on the first Sunday of every month, and the day before.

On the same train line, you might be able to visit Cortona (a rather overrated town, in my opinion, well-known for the book and film Under the Tuscan Sun. It's about an hour and a half from Florence, but then you have to take a bus or taxi up the hill to the town. There is a very intact Etruscan candelabra in the civic museum, which is very well worth seeing. The Basilica of Santa Margherita, on the top of a hill, is also very nice.

It's also possible to visit Assisi, the last stop on the same train. It's a fairly long train trip, from 2 1/2 to 3 hours, but it passes through pretty countryside.

I believe you can also visit some of the Chianti towns by bus from Florence, but I've never been to any of them, so don't know if it's worth while.

You might also consider taking a day-long, or half-day, enogastronomic tour from Florence.

Yeah I took bus tours a couple of times from Florence. Once to Pisa/Lucca and another time, a tour which combined San Gimignano and Pisa.

I know you can do a SITA bus tour with an audio guide for a really low price. It was like €14 10 years ago.

And there are wine tours which will drive you out to Chianti, include lunch and tastings and drive you back.

Otherwise, I rented a car to get to places like Volterra or based in Siena to drive around the Val d'Orcia and Umbria.