Hello everyone,

In May, my husband and I will have three nights free in between Lucca and Rome. We'd like to spend these 3 nights based in a Tuscan town to visit Siena, Pienza, Montepulciano, and see a little bit of the beautiful Orcia Valley scenery. We do not plan to rent a car, we'll depend on buses or trains.

Is Siena a logical choice for home base to day-trip to Pienza and Montepulciano? If not, then where should we base ourselves on?

If we have extra time, in additional to Pienza and Montepulciano, which town would you recommend us to visit from our home base by bus?

Thanks in advance.

Here is a resource for you to get bus schedule. Plug in Siena to Montepulciano and see what you get. Use correct day of the week next week.

http://www.busfox.com/timetable/acce..._timetable.php

The schedule shown is not mistake. There is a large gap in schedule going that direction in the morning. Same for Pienza. I think these schedules are meant to be convenient for commuters to travel to Siena in the morning and return from Siena in the evening.

The bus is a great idea, because there is no real train system in most of Tuscany.

Siena has the best bus connections, but they are not good. Forget trains in that part of Tuscany. I would try Montalcino which has better connections to/from Siena. The busses are meant for locals, not tourists.

You can't easily day trip from Siena to Pienza or Montepulciano as buses aren't that frequent. It's much easier to visit Montalcino from Siena (about 1 hour travel time) as there are multiple buses (long stretch in the afternoon without return buses). If one of your days is a Sunday, most buses on these routes will not be running. Make sure you buy a return ticket and you know when and where to catch the last bus back. Some buses will depart the Siena train station while others depart from Piazza Gramsci.

Here's a bus map for the area.
http://www.sienamobilita.it/mappe/Mappa_EXT.pdf

If you don't mind changing towns each night, you could train from Rome to Orvieto for a night (an hour from Rome). From Orvieto you could train to Chiusi/Chianciano and catch the bus to either Montepulciano or Pienz for a night before catching the bus on to Siena. Or skip Orvieto and spend a night in Montepulciano before heading onto Pienza/Siena.

You get a lot of good views on the bus routes from Montepulciano to Pienza/Siena and Siena/Montalcino and the views from the towns are great too.

Greg, Bob, and kybourbon,

Thank you very much for your URL links and suggestions.

Montalcino it is, for our day-trip from Siena. We are moving from Lucca to Rome and unfortunately, cannot reverse the direction, because from Rome we are going to take a cruise to Turkey and Greece.