BarbaraJ

My DH and I are going to be in Florence for four days the middle of October. It's our third time in Florence and we were considering taking a day trip while we were there. Last year we spent a week in Siena so would prefer somewhere else. We thought maybe Pisa, San Gimigano (sp?) or maybe a wine tasting or other tour. We also don't want to rent a car.

Thanks!

annhig

Hi Barbara,

My favourite trip when we were in Florence was up to Fiesole. you can either get the bus from the usual place or from st. mark's square just round the corner from the accademia [possibility of seeing David or the monastary first if you go in the morning] and it takes about 30 minutes.

once you get there, there is the cathedral in the centre, and if you walk up the hill to the left of the central square, you end up at a monastary where you can see the gardens and cells. If you go inside, there is a wonderful nativity scene and a free! museum with many interesting things that the monks have collected in their travels, including an egyptian mummy.

when you come out, don't go back the way you came but go back down to the town through the public gardens ahead of you, follow the littel road you reach to the right, and you'll end up at the roman amphitheatre.

after that, it's time for lunch at the restaurant in the square under the trees.

or you could go to san gim with the crowds.

regards, ann

quokka

Have a closer look at Lucca. Back in those times (early 90's) there were hardly any tourists at all. This will have changed, but it won't be as overrun as San Gimignano.

zeppole

It's hard to advise without knowing more of what you want out of your day trip from Firenze, and what you like to do.

Pisa has absolutely spectacular artistic monuments and museums, and they are easy to see from Firenze. If you wander not far away from the monuments, you'll find very nice food, but not much different from the Tuscan fare of Firenze.

Lucca is genteel walled city, very different in feel from Siena, an upscale shopping mecca, and has several unique historic features -- its well-preserved walls, its Roman "anfiteatro", its tower with a garden on top. And it's flat and easy to reach by train. It's been a beloved Italian tourist destination for so long it scarcely has a life of its own (like Venezia) and it's got one great restaurant in the middle of town: Buca di Sant'Antonio.

San Gimignano is tough to reach, is all uphill, is overrun with daytrippers and has staggeringly lovely frescoes in its church and curious architecture. And a few good places to eat.

Bologna is a great city, food-lover paradise, utterly different in feel from the tourist destinations of Italy, has fascinating art and historic sites, and is an easy hop by train.

And then there are tours to wineries, etc....

vincenzod

Barbara, I have a funky suggestion for your day trip from Florence.
Listen, please.
At the main railway station of Florence, Santa Maria Novella, take the train whose final destination is Faenza.
Your destination is Brisighella.
Several plus:
a) a trip by train enables you to enjoy the view and the local people (in October the pupils which attend at school;
b) the travel is cheap enough as these local trains have no surcharge as IC and ES;
c) you see by the window of the train a not yet well known part of Tuscany, Mugello and
d) you visit Brisighella, a very cute and nice small hill town of Romagna and, I am sure, you will enjoy it.

Have a lovely trip, ciao.

Vincenzo

jdc26

Vincenzo, bookmarking for my upcoming trip to Firenze.

jdc

Venezia123

I would do San Gimigano it's beautiful. And you can take the train,It is a little touristy but nice.

BarbaraJ

Thank you for the suggestions. With all these great ideas it may be hard to choose!

We have many interests, so it's hard to pin down exactly what we want for the day trip. Art, architecture, history, museums all interest us. We also just enjoy visiting different places and wandering to get a feel for the place. We enjoy visiting wineries here so that would be an option as well. The only limitation is that we will have to take public transportation or hire a driver.

Ann - Fiesole sounds like an option. Thanks for all the details.

Zeppole & Quokka - We'll put Lucca on the list. We would prefer something not as touristy so this sounds better than SG. We thought of Bologna, but I'm going to be on a culinary tour prior to Florence and will be spending time in Bologna.

Vincenzo - I like your idea as well. We've used the local train system before when we needed to get to Pesaro from Firenze.

zeppole

barbara,

annhig suggested Fiesole and you can easily find wineries up there with wine tours. You might have a very easy, charming day trip and deepen your experience of Firenze. It's a legendary area.

You might try googling up Casanova di Neri and Fattoria di Maiano, and other information about Fra Angelicos in Fiesole, etc.

BarbaraJ

Can we do Lucca and Pisa in the same day?

zeppole

I think you can give it a go. Neither place is so far that if you felt shortchanged you couldn't go back the next morning. I find the museums of Pisa at the Campo dei Miracoli so rewarding I wouldn't want to skip them, but most people do. If you go to them, be prepared for a longer day, even though I think the attractions of Lucca don't require more than strolling around for several hours, including atop the walls. I didn't find any of the interiors (churches or museums) highlights.

johnwm

Hi, BarbaraJ!

When in Florence, you might consider a daytrip to Orvieto. It's a nice town worth seeing.

annhig

Hi barbara,

if you are considering pisa, I would strongly suggest booking your ascent of the tower, if this is something you want to do - at ww.opa-pisa.it.

if you're not sure, in october you might be able to do it when you get there - as soon as you get to the campo dei miracoli go to the ticket office and book your slot. you have to put everything, even handbags, in the lockers [locked and secure] in the cloakrooms, and they let up about 30 people every 30 minutes. it's a lot of fun. otherwise, I seem to remember that you can get a combined ticket to the duomo and the baptistry, [from a different ticket office on the other side of the campo, I think] which are truly marvellous sights, and manage to transcend the commercialism that unfortunately surrounds them.

have fun.

regards, ann

Steve_James

Hi Barbara - How far are you happy to travel? Other options include:

Arezzo
Cortona
Orvieto
Perugia
Assisi
Chiantishire
Cinque Terre
Parma
Padova
Ravenna
Verona
Rome
Venice

... to name a few

Steve

zeppole

Without a car, a "day trip" to le Cinque Terre is not everybody's cup of tea (not mine, fore sure!) The train connections are multiple and not great, and the coastal train line is notorious for its lack of punctuality.

I also question Perugia as a day trip choice. It's a major city with a multiplicity of important artistic and historical sites, and a difficult infrastructure.

I realize it's always possible to take a train and toe-touch, and dip into a place and cherry-pick one attraction out of the feast that's on offer. I travel myself that way a lot in Europe, but sometimes when I read Fodor's it's pretty obvious to me that some people heading to Italy for the first time don't know that there is a big difference between the size and history of San Gimignano and Siena, or Perugia and Lucca. One can end up strongly disliking places like Siena and Perugia if attempted as a day trip, or feeling immensely frustrated, whereas Lucca is easier to embrace on a day trip.

willit

Venezia123 - I am fairly certain that the closest you can get to S.Gimignano by train is Poggibonsi, and then the bus from there - easier to just catch the bus from Florence.

I have been to SG several times, but only really enjoyed it on a cold wet day in October - purely because o other days it would have been technically possible to walk the entire distance from the main gate to the central Piazza across the heads of the throngs of people. The Fresco of hell in SG is probably the among the most disturbing images I have ever seen.

Pisa and Lucca together would be a long, but doable day trip. I would be tempted to leave for pisa early, spend several hours in the Campo, find lunch away from the tower (there are several very good restaurants in the town centre), then get the train to Lucca for another few hours exploration.

On my last trip to Tuscany, I went to Arezzo for the first time and was really taken with the city - If it hadn't been so cold (around zero), I would have stayed much longer, and definitely plan to go back.

Another vote for Fiesole as well, if only for the views.

TDudette

I love Pisa and vote for that. If you have time after visiting the Tower, Duomo, etc., you need only go a few blocks to find an interesting university town.

Viareggio is another possibility. On the water. Some Art Nouveau architecture from its 1920s heyday. Don't know what's going on there in October though.

As always, please share what you ended up doing.

franco

For once, I disagree with zeppole. While I perceived Lucca pretty much as you do when I was there for the first time many years ago, it has much improved. It was always pretty, but rather boring & lifeless. This year, I found it lively, elegant, and certainly with a life of its own - on the contrary, it has more life of its own than many other Tuscan destinations. Very different flair from the rest of the region! And definitely not touristy.
(By the way, it's of course also wrooooong that Venice has no life of its own. Venetians are just champions in hiding their typical Italian small-town life from people who don't know Venice really, really well. It's their way of surviving tourism!)
And it's also not true, sorry zeppole, that Pisa is offering the same Tuscan fare as Florence. Not at all! Pisan cuisine is a maritime cuisine, thus closely related to Viareggio, not Florence. And the Pisan culinary showcase is brachette alla renaiola - maltagliati-like pasta in a purée of cime di rapa and smoked fish. Just go and find this great pasta dish in Florence! Or eels with sage, another Pisan standard...
Lucca offers again completely different fare. Here it's all about ingredients from the neighbouring Garfagnana mountains: farro (spelt), mostly used for thick soups; porcini mushrooms; even testaroli from the Lunigiana (north-west of Garfagnana), a very old type of thick pasta that's also at home in eastern Liguria (the region next to the Lunigiana mountains).

BarbaraJ

Again, thanks for all the terrific suggestions and information. DH likes the idea of Pisa since he has a colleague at the University who may be able to meet us for lunch. We could just head for Pisa and then see if we have time for Lucca. Then again.. Fiesole sounds nice as well. We may do Pisa/Lucca one day and a half day at Fiesole the next.

DivinaCucina

Ciao
I have lived in Florence for 25 years now, but am new on the Fodor's board.

From Florence I would go to Pisa, look around and then hit Lucca on the way back, easy day training it.

San Gimignano, which is near my home in Certaldo, is not easy by train.
The train goes to Poggibonsi and then you have to take bus,forget it!

I adore Siena and could easily spend a week there, walking around the back alley's visiting museums.

Usually when I take people on a day trip, we have so much to see just in town, we never get into a museum.

It is a hopping living city and has great shopping too!