My wife and I will be in Firenze for two weeks and would like to take a day trip to Volterra. My reading of the bus schedules indicates that the schedules don't leave a a lot of time in Volterra if we want to make the last bus back. Does anyone have any experience (quality and cost) of a car and driver for the day? Thanks.

It's difficult to day trip to Volterra because of the limited bus service. If you look at their website, you will see there are also some bus connections to nearby towns with trains so maybe that would work (you would need to check bus and train for last run back).

http://www.comune.volterra.pi.it/fle...IT/IDPagina/53

CPT buses

http://www.pisa.cttnord.it/Linee_e_O...raurbane/L/134

Siena Mobilita (now Tiemme) bus map

http://www.sienamobilita.it/mappe/Mappa_EXT.pdf

There are also some day tours out of Florence. The tourist office will have a more complete list.

http://www.underthetuscansun.it/tour..._volterra.html

http://www.florenceandtuscanytours.c..._14__17__2.php

http://www.tuscanytours.net/index.ph...gnano-volterra

Google maps has the local bus and train schedules in their database, so if you search for directions from Volterra to Florence, and click on the bus icon, you'll see some of the possibilities mentioned by KYBourbon. It looks to me as though the latest time you could realistically get a bus back would be at 6:04 PM; that would involve taking a bus to Pontedera and a train from there to Florence (Rifredi station). From Rifredi, you can take a train to the main train station (S. Maria Novella), or a taxi to your hotel.

The roads are very wiggly and make the buses take a long time as well. Still if you are in a car all you do is sit behind buses.

>>>Google maps has the local bus and train schedules in their database,<<<

I find Google public transportation info on their maps is often wrong/out of date.

You might be able to dramatcally cut the cost of a driver for a day trip by using buses to get to Volterra, but then arranging for a taxi to take you to the Pontedera train station at the end of the day. Even if the one-hour taxi ride is pricey, there are many trains from Pontedera to Firenze into the evening and nighttime, so you woud have a lot of flexibility in how much time you spent in Volterra

http://www.volterrataxi.com

Thanks, folks. As usual, this is the place for the best advice. We've been to Italy several times -- and from the info so far, we'll save Volterra for an Etruscan trip with Tarqunina from Rome. So, we'll likely go to Lucca and/or Pistoia for our day trips. I thought that I might be missing something on the bus connections, but apparently not.

Thanks, folks. As usual, this is the place for the best advice. We've been to Italy several times -- and from the info so far, we'll save Volterra for an Etruscan trip with Tarqunina from Rome. So, we'll likely go to Lucca and/or Pistoia for our day trips. I thought that I might be missing something on the bus connections, but apparently not.

I've done day trips by public transports to just about all the hill towns between Rome and Pisa but basing in Florence I have always found the schedules so convuluted that would take hours to go not far as the crow flies - next time I'll base in Viareggio and make it finally to Volterra!

We were in a villa in northwest Tuscany in October. I took day trips to Lucca, Pistoia (by train), and Volterra (by car), and all three are lovely, so I don't think you will go wrong even if you can't swing the transportation times to make Volterra work for you.