Help needed with trip planning in Tuscany Region
 

Hi all. We are currently planning a trip to Italy in July (there will be 4 of us). We are thinking about spending 3 nights in the Tuscany region. Any suggestions on where we should base ourselves? Will we need a car or is public transportation needed? Here is the basic itinerary we have so far:

3 nights Venice
3 nights Cinque Terre
3 nights Tuscany region- need help with this part!
5 nights Rome

I would appreciate any thoughts/suggestions. Thanks!

Getting 4 people from Venice to the CT and then on to Tuscany will be your challenge. I would get a car as you leave Venice and keep it until you leave Tuscany--dropping it at Orvieto as you approach Rome. In Tuscany, stay south of Siena in the Val d'Orcia. Search here for multiple posts for places to stay in Tuscany.

hi kellip,

I'm beginning to sound like a record - 4 places in 14 days is [probably] too much. you lose half a day every time you travel, and somehow, the more people you are, the harder it gets.


I suggest 4 nights Venice [giving you 3 days and time to recover from jet-lag] pick up a car, drive to Tuscan agritorismo or similar, 5 nights, then return car, train to Rome, 5 nights.

regards, ann

Given that there are 4 of you the car makes most financial sense, but note that getting somewhere to park it in July is going to be a challange. Still it means that you can get into the true tuscany. Try Google maps to see how the motorways and railways follow the rivers and while there are buses between they tend to be of the once a day variety.

Agrotourismo make a lot of sense

I agree that parking is going to be a nightmare in le Cinque Terre in July. One option is for you to all take the train from Venezia to Cinque Terre, where a car simply sits in an expensive parking lot anyway, and when you leave, take the train to La Spezia (or Pisa) and rent your car there and head into Tuscany.

If you prefer to rent your car in Venice to transport you to le Cinque Terre, I would recommend that you consider staying in a town just outside of the five towns with good parking and that has good boat or train connections to le Cinque Terre. Since you would be moving on to Tuscany, consider staying in a hotel in Lerici, and visiting le Cinque Terre on a boat that takes you to all the five towns. If you don't like boats, you can travel further up the coast to any town on the train line -- Levanto is often people's first choice, but others further along have less tourists -- and using the train to visit the five towns.

As for Tuscany, it really will behoove you to look at book about Tuscany and see what you think you would most like to see. Many people prefer the areas around San Gimignano to the areas south of Siena and the val d'Orcia. Others prefer Chianti, and even some (me!) enjoy the dry and wild Maremma. All the areas of Tuscany are dense with lovely towns, even though you'll only be in one tiny place, you will be tripping over beauty everytime you turn around.

If you don't do some of your own research based on the interests of the 4 people traveling, you will end up taking the well-marked beaten track of educational and scenic sights -- all of which are worth seeing -- but miss out on what might have made a trip to Italy very meaningful for you all personally (i.e., staying near hot springs, on a horse farm, on a lakeside, near a golf course, near special shopping, a great chocolate maker or motorcycle museum, or the work of an artist you love, like Della Robbia, etc etc).

hope that helps

I agree with Bos's scenario...

However, having a car in the Cinque Terre is problematic. To deal with the issue we lodged for a week in the vicinity of Lerici and used boat transportation from there across the Golfo di Spezia to reach Portovenere and the Five Towns.

It was a very enjoyable "commute"!

Bob's scenario

kellip17,
I have a large file on Tuscany. It is too big to post. Send me an e-mail and I will send it to you.

Henry

When we stayed for a week in Tuscany in 06 and wanted to get to Nice France by train (so we could dump the Italy car in Italy), we looked at driving to various spots along the way to pick up the train - Siena, Florence, Pisa, Lucca, la Spezia. By far, la Spezia made the most sense. There were several train changes that had to be made before we got to the Cinque Terre area if we departed from the other locations. In your case, you could do this in reverse.

On another trip, we drove to the Cinque Terre & parked the car in a big parking lot in Monterosso. I don't recall any difficulty parking there - but this was in early Sept '96 (early Rick Steves).

Do you have my Italy Itinerary - with lots of info about scenic drives in Tuscany? If not, e-mail me at [email protected] & I'll send one

Stu Dudley