Itinerary suggestions?
 

My adult(21 yr.old)son and I are planning a 10 day trip to Italy at the end of May. We're interested in art, food and wine(the vineyards) We're thinking of visiting the Tuscany region but haven't gotten any more specific than that. Any suggestions for itineraries/places to stay (moderately priced) would be appreciated. Should we fly into Rome? Don't want to stay in a new place every night but maybe 2 or 3 changes, or is it possible to stay in one central place and see enough of the area? <BR>Thanks.

We rented an apartment in a farmhouse in Castellina in Chianti for a week. There's much to see right in the area- short drives to Siena, Florence, San Gimignano. Even Lucca and Pisa are within driving disance. In my view, it's better than staying in a hotel.

The previous message about the farmhouse sounds good, but I have not tried it. We took a 2 week driving trip thru the region 2 summers ago. Basically moved to a different spot each night. <BR>We did stay in Sienna 2 nights, and stayed at a convent/monastery right in the city. Cheap, nice, convenient. There is a book called "Bed and blessings" which lists convents you canstay at. Very cool.<BR>The city of Sienna is very nice, and often people use it to day trip into Florence. <BR>We have always used Rick Steves' guidebooks for hotels, what to see, etc and have always been pleased. <BR>We Loved the town of Assisi, quiet.

Kathy,<BR><BR>I would recommend you fly in to Rome and spend four nights there. There is so much to do in Rome and this should give you plenty of time to do what's most important to you. Then I would take the train to Florence and spend 2 nights there. The rest of your time should be spent at a vinyard near the Chianti region. Rent a car in Florence which you can do through autoeurope.com and drive to the Chianti area. Stop at some of the vinyards, I highly recommend Castello di Uzzano and Villa Vignamaggio. We stayed at Villa Vignamaggio and it's beautiful but also very pricey. I know that any of the vinyards in this area will be nice. From here you can take day trips to Siena and San Gimignano and try to spend your last day relaxing at whatever vinyard you are staying at.<BR><BR>Have a great time!<BR><BR>

I frequently stay at an agriturismo called La Crociona (a vineyard where they produce Brunello). It’s located about 3km south of Montalcino. To the east about a half-hour drive past San Quircio d’Orcia and Pienza is Montepulciano (Vino Nobile). A half-hour north is Siena (start of Chianti country). An hour drive north and you could be in Florence or San Gimignano (Vernaccia). About an hour and a half drive south is Orvieto (Classico). Excellent food at moderate prices is easy to find outside the big cities. Art is everywhere, Murlo, Monte Oliveto, etc. In answer to your Question there is no central place to see it all but almost any place will let you see a lot. While I don’t like the big cities and try to stay in small towns there is a reason the big three are the most visited. If this is your first trip you should try to see two of them and maybe one small town to get the feel of Italy. E-mail if I can be of help.

10 days is a good amount of time to stay in 2 places and visit a lot of Toscana. I would choose either Rome or Florence for the city stop and not do both. The countryside is incredible and is spread out so allow a week for that. And if you want to stay in an appartment or farmhouse in chianti, you will find that most require a Saturday to Saturday stay. The ones that don't require this tend to be on the more expensive side in my experience. I love to get a farmhouse as one of my favorite things to do is to shop in the local markets and then cook one meal a day at home. This allows for big splurges on the meals we do eat out. I will top my Toscanna suggestions for you.<BR><BR>Dean

Topping, for Kathy...<BR><BR>This message, 21 days old (and part of the 3000+ messages not indexed right now) was 2724 messages "deep".<BR><BR>By the way, for those who are interested, you can skip "way back", real quick, with a URL like this:<BR><BR>http://www.fodors.com/forums/postreply.jsp?fid=2&start=2700<BR><BR>You won't have the normal left-hand and right-hand frames, but rather, just the left-hand frame down the middle. But you can still pull the URL off of any thread, and see it by plunking it down into the URL space in your browser.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

Topping, for Kathy...<BR><BR>This message, 21 days old (and part of the 3000+ messages not indexed right now) was 2724 messages "deep".<BR><BR>By the way, for those who are interested, you can skip "way back", real quick, with a URL like this:<BR><BR>http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgTopics.jsp?fid=2&start=2700<BR><BR>You won't have the normal left-hand and right-hand frames, but rather, just the left-hand frame down the middle. But you can still pull the URL off of any thread, and see it by plunking it down into the URL space in your browser.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

Whoops - - sorry for the double post - - I tried to catch it with "stop" - - but I guess I wasn't quick enough.<BR><BR>The re-post contains the correct URL to read posts - - <BR>http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgTopics.jsp?fid=2&start=2700<BR><BR>The other one (as you might guess) is to post a reply.<BR>