Italy Itinerary
 

Does this sound reasonable:

We will be staying in Cinque Terre for a week and are leaving midmorning Saturday.

1. we will rent a car in La Spezia and drive to Pisa (stay in Pisa until Monday morning)

2. drive to Florence (stay until Wednesday morning)

(instead of 1 and 2, is it better to take a train from CT to Lucca and just do day trips? what if we want to explore Florence for one more day?)

3. early train to Venice (stay until our flight departs on Saturday morning)

Thanks for any input!

If you are only going to be visiting Lucca, Pisa and Florence, I would not bother with renting a car. The train would probably be the simpler and most cost efficient method. You can see train schedules and prices at www.trenitalia.it. There is an English link at the top if you don't feel like testing your Italian ;-).

The great thing about your itinerary is that everything is so close. From La Spezia to Florence is just a little over 2 hours by train. To Pisa it is about an hour and to Lucca it is just over an hour. Plus, the train fares are very cheap (it is only 5,20 euros from Florence to Pisa for a standard second class ticket).

My personal preference would be to go on to Florence and take day trips from there. You could go to Lucca and Pisa, but you could also easily get to Siena as well as some of the hill towns. Plus, if you decided that you want more time in Florence, you're already there. Whatever you decide, have a great trip.

Thanks for your advice capkirk1. I think we'll definitely take a train to Florence and work from there (day trips to Pisa and Siena).

So, I guess Venice is totally out of the question? I thought if we flew out of Venice at the end of our trip, we'd be able to spend some time there.

I'm sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were planning to spend a week in CT, a week on the way to Venice and then some time in Venice before flying out. How much time do you actually have to accomplish your plans?

We are doing a culinary tour in CT from Sept 9 to the morning of the 15th (Sat) and then we have until Sept 22 (following Sat) to go anywhere we want. We have not yet bought airline tickets, but we have to fly into an airport close enough to our CT tour.

We were thinking of going to Venice last and flying out of there.

I would recommend flying into Genova or Pisa as they are the closest to Cinque Terre. You can get an idea of the distances with www.multimap.com. With one week, you should have time to get a quick overview of the places you wish to see and then fly out of Venice.

You'll get varying opinions (especially on these boards) regarding how long is long enough/too long in each place. I usually don't recommend more than a couple of days in Venice. Others prefer more time there. If you think that you'd like to spend several days there, start with Venice and work backwards. That would leave you with about 4 days to spend seeing Florence, Pisa, Lucca, etc.

As I mentioned earlier, Florence is a good location to have as a base because is is rather centrally located. It is about 1 hour from Pisa, about an hour and a half from Lucca and about an hour and a half from Siena by train. There is also a bus to Siena that many recommend. I have only taken the train, so I can't help you with that. So, you should be able to visit any or all of those locations as daytrips.

Most people only visit Pisa for a very short time in order to get their picture of the Tower and see the surrounding area. I've never been to Lucca personally, but I've heard of people doing both Lucca and Pisa in the same day (they are only about 25 minutes apart).

If it were me, I would fly into Genova or Pisa (whichever is cheaper) and train over to Cinque Terre (less than 2 hours from either location). After your time in Cinque Terre, I would train over to Florence for the next 4 days. Do your daytrips (one day do Pisa and Lucca, another day do Siena) and leave a couple of days for Florence. Then go over to Venice for the last 3 before flying home. It sounds like a great trip. You should have a nice balance of urban and rural areas.

Thank you so much--your advice is extremely helpful. I am going to look into flights now.

Have a great trip and be sure to let us all know how everything goes by posting a travel report.

I agree with capkirk that you do not want a car to go to Pisa, Florence, and Lucca. However, if you decide you do want a car, be aware that in most smaller locations in Italy, car rental offices are open until around noon or 1:00 p.m. only, so you would have to leave early enough to get to La Spezia in time to get a car.
Also if you train from C.T. to Florence, you will have to change trains in Pisa anyway, so you might think about checking your luggage at the train station and doing a whirlwind tour. Lucca is a lovely city, but it is relatively small. I prefer it to Florence, but it really depends on what you want to do. It is more of a place to just be - no great art. I think the plan of about 3 days in Florence and 3 days in Venice after C.T. sounds good. Enjoy your planning!