Hello,

My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Italy the first two weeks of October. We plan on landing in Florence and visiting Tuscany. We are active adults who love to hike and walk. We will be renting a car once we leave Florence to visit the Tuscsny area. Any idea for an itinerary . We were thinking of Siena, Chianti, and the surroundings. We plan on visiting Rome another time.

We don't want to change hotels every night and are looking to stay in agrotourismo.

Thanks.

Isabel

First, you plan sounds very good.

Second, my favourite places in Tuscany are Firenze, Lucca, Pisa, Volterra, Populonia, San Gimignano, Siena.

These places roughly form a square with Pisa, Firenze, Siena and Populonia at the four corners. The most logical thing would be to choose a base right in the center of this square and do daytrips from there to the mentioned places. There are motorways and scenic country roads.

San Gimignano or Volterra would fit the bill. San G. is quite touristy, but the agriturismi are in the countryside anyway.

Thanks for the reply. I am very excited to be going to,Tuscany. I was now thinking of renting a car in Florence when we arrived and going straight to the countryside and finish off with 3 to 4 days in Florence.

Consider a trip up to the Cinque Terre - in early October, it will still be busy, but it's a beautiful area - amazing views, some great hiking opportunities. It's best done by train not car, really.

We are definitely visiting to to the cinque terres. We are now thinking of arrivinh in Bologna and taking the train straight to Florence. Our trip would start there and finish in Bologna. Any thoughts??