I am an American English teacher currently living in Verona, Italy and I am trying to plan a two week trip for my mother to come visit me. The goal of the trip is to see the south (Sicily) and central (Tuscany) for a week before finishing in the North, where I live, for a week. The rough draft of the trip is:

Begin in Catania for approximately 3 days.

Fly into Pisa and rent a car to stay in an agriturismo in Tuscany for approx 4 days.

Take the train to Verona and stay for one week with day trips to Venice and Garda.

I'm not worried about the North/Veneto, but I need help with the South/Central regions! Specifically info about:

- Catania airport and inexpensive places to stay (B&Bs, etc).
- Getting from Catania to Tuscany
- Where to stay in Tuscany to see countryside (have been recommended Chianti, Montepulcino, S. Gimignano, etc.) Looking for close to Pisa/Siena and beautiful, of course.
- Recommended car rental options (is it true that manual is that much cheaper than automatic?)

My mother is about 60 and we are looking to keep this as simple and nice as possible. The main goals are good food, good wine, beautiful scenery, and a nice time. We don't want to stress ourselves out with details but we do want to see some of the great parts of Italy (she has never been). I am trying to extensively plan now to keep it easy later.

Any info on the above topics would be HUGELY appreciated!!!

Also - we are looking at the time frame as somewhere in the last week of April, first few weeks of May.

I would drop Sicily. Catania is on the eastern coast, some distance from the better known Greek and Roman and Romanesque sites (Monreale for one). Good food, wine and scenery is available without going that far. Two different locations, Tuscany and Umbria?, would make more sense in my opinion. But if you insist on Sicily, you might want to take a look at my trip report. We stayed in a agriturismo just outside Syracusa.

Look at www.kemwel.com for pricing of cars with or without automatic. If renting a car from one location and returning it to the same, we got better pricing from http://www.economycarrentals.com/

First, I would fly directly into Catania, but you cannot do much in only 3 days. Is Catania your destination--more to see and do in Siracusa or Taormina---both an hour from the airport. Then, fly to Florence or Pisa and get your car. You need to study your options in Tuscany---location is everything. Pisa and Siena are more than 2 hours apart.

Yes, auto cars are much more---perhaps 50% more.

Here is Sicily in May, but we spent 15 days:

http://www.slowphotos.com/photo/show...y.php?cat=3828

If you do not have time to visit some of the major sights in Sicily like Agrigento, then skip Sicily. IMHO, Sicily would be five days minimum.
Consider, instead, flying into Naples and seeing Pompeii and the AC (Positano & Capri), which can be done in three days.

hi tv,

given your mum's age, your schedule looks a bit frantic for me - I think that you might wish that you'd just done one place as well as your "home" base, which I take to be Verona.

a week in Sicily, or the amalfi, or Tuscany followed by a week at "home" would be really appealing to me, and I'm not that far away from your mother's age. dotting around italy and moving on just when i was getting to know somewhere would be less attractive.

however, places where you could get between them by train would be better than flying.