We are planning to go mid October ~ their "Daylight Savings Time" ends the end of October as ours does, so November would cut down on afternoon daylight hours not only because of the time of year, but because of the clock change.

Regarding the weather we will just cross our fingers, that is out of our control!

wrenwood - we were in florence for a week in the last week of October a few years ago, and never ate a single meal inside - not even a late supper or two.

fingers and toes crossed that you are as lucky as we were with the weather!

One more thing to consider is that October is hunting (shooting) season in Tuscany, and we had hunters shooting at various things beginning at dawn at both the villas we were in, one near Pienza, one outside Florence. Didn't bother us (except for not being able to go after cingiale on our own) but it might bother some. Good game in the markets, though.

It really seems that the rains are coming later and later recently - Dec. and Jan. have been awful the last couple of years, and it is raining again tonight and seems like it has been raining pretty steady for the last week! Cold too - lots of snow in the hills.

We still have snow on the ground from our 18inches before Christmas, another 2 inches on the way tonight. Temperatures have been down in the teens at night and barely above freezing (32 degrees F ) during the day. I don't really mind though as many years of winters without precipitaion have lowered our ground water table.

Think we'll need heat or AC in October?

Ackislander ~ if they are hunting near Monticchiello I guess we won't need alarm clocks to get up early!

>>>Think we'll need heat or AC in October?<<<

That can be a problem. Many places only have AC turned on June, July, August and many won't turn the heat on until November. Be sure to ask the places you plan to stay.