My sister who is 20 and my best friend and I (both 23) are going to Florence for 6 days in May, and I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions of things to do. Also are day trips to places like Rome or Milan Do-able or would you suggest just staying in Florence? I am open to any and all suggestions. Thanks for your help!

First things first- get a good solid guidebook (or do some searching online) to do some basic research... fodorites are at their best when they have more specific questions. Second, day trips to rome and milan are doable if you want to be on the train all day long and see nothing of the city. Are you flying in and out of Florence? If so, you may just want to base yourself in Florence for 3 days then pick another town in Tuscany for 3 days... if you really want to see part of Rome- travel to Rome for at least 3 days and then spend the other three in Florence... Florence is a great city though and it and Tuscany are worthy of all 6 days...

It's possible to day-trip to Rome and Milan, but I wouldn't. Too many hours lost on trains from an already short trip.

You can take many day trips into the surrounding area: Siena, San Gimignano, Lucca, Pisa, Fiesole, wine tasting in Chianti, just to name the most popular. You can do searches on this forum for many threads about these towns and day-tripping from Florence. Just type each town into the search box above.

I think I disagree with the above. Rome is only a few hours by train from Florence. If you get up and catch an early train you could very well have a good solid 7-8 hours in Rome. While not a lot of time, it's certainly enough time to see the Colliseum and the Forum, Pantheon, etc. I personally love Rome and would take a day over nothing.

Tracy

Posted to soon to add that I do agree that there is enough to do in Florence and the surrounding region to fill up your time. However, if you really want to visit Rome you shouldn't have a problem. It just depends on your interest.

Tracy

I disagree with shormk2 about the day trip to Rome. On the fast trains the trip is only 1h 45min or so. My family and I have done it a number of times. It's not cheap travel and it's certainly better to spend more a few nights in Rome, if possible, but if the question is whether the trip is doable I would say yes. I absolutely agree that Florence is a great city and worthy of all six days. My family and I spend at least a month a year in Italy with two weeks minimum in Florence.

We are actually flying in and out of pisa, visiting a friend who has been studying abroad in florence all semester. Thank you so much for all of your suggestions!

skp, your friend in florence should surely have some ideas for what to do.

No one has mentioned Bologna, regarded by many as the food capital of Italy. It's a cool town to walk around in and there is a university there so lots of students around. It's not far from
Bologna to Parma, where the REAL parmesan cheese is made. If you have never tasted frshly cut Pamigiano-Reggiano, you are in for a treat!