francolf

Hello!
I am planning a six-day stay in Tuscany and would appreciate your opinions about the cities and towns I'm considering visiting.

Day 1: Leaving Rome early in the morning. First towns I have in mind are Civita di Bagnoregio and Pitigliano, then Cortona and finally Montepulciano to stay the first night. (Could also be an alternative Montepulciano first and sleep in Cortona)
Day 2: Maybe a couple of hours in Montepulciano (or Cortona), depending on the time I arrived the day before, then go to Siena and stay there for about 6 to 8 hours, then ending the day in San Gimignano. I was told the best hours to spend in San Gimignano are in the evening and in the morning before it gets too crowdy. Monteriggioni is also in the way to San Gimignano.
Day 3: To begin this day I have in mind two possibilities: 1) Volterra or 2) The Chianti Valley. I'm not too interested in vineyards but I understand all the area is very scenic and really worth the visit. Maybe I have time enough for both alternatives? The idea is to stay the night in Lucca.
Day 4: Lucca and Pisa, to end the day in Florence.
Day 5 and 6: Florence.

What do you think? Too many places? Some important place I must not to miss?
Thanks!!

StCirq

When are you going?

How are you traveling?

francolf

Sorry for the lack of information!... We are 2 people, travelling by car from Rome. The trip will be in May.

TDudette

Lots to see and I'm happy for you. However, I think you could just about stay in one place and do day trips to all of these towns that call out to you before ending up in Florence where you should ditch the car. Google the driving distances and see if you can reduce the number of times you change hotels. What about basing in Arezzo before Florence? Going by train to some of the places may be easier than driving and searching for parking.

To each his own, but my DH and I liked staying in a town with much to do after a day of sightseeing. Others can make more specific suggestions. Generally, you lose 1/2 when changing hotels.

StCirq

I agree with TDudette. With a car you should be able to find a suitable base among those possibilities that will allow you to venture out each day to new places and return in the evening. The business of packing up, moving to a new destination, then unpacking and getting oriented gets old pretty quickly.

Also be sure to inform yourselves about ZTLs so you don't get hit with hundreds of euros in fines a few months after you return home. You absolutely do not want to drive into Florence; Siena has a ZTL and probably others on your list. This may argue for at least some train travel.

francolf

Thanks for your replies!
We will be prepared for ZTL and the idea is to park oustide the towns. We also do prefer not to have a base town, just to stay at night and in the next morning. I think is a waste of time returning to the same place everyday, it's more efficient moving from town to town.

Regarding the itinerary we thought... what do you think? Too many places? Some important place I must not to miss?

Thanks again!!

annhig

Hi Francolf,

with your busy schedule one thing you need to factor into your considerations is opening hours of the things you want to see in each place. Many sites like museums and castles/palaces close down over lunch as do shops so you could easily find yourselves in a place where everything is shut.

looking at your schedule, I've never been to Civita di Bagnoregio but it'll take you a bit of time to get there, [about 2 hours drive from Rome] and then there's driving up there, parking, walking round, which could well be another couple of hours. So I'm thinking that you'll be leaving there at noon, possibly later. It's an hour or so to Pitigliano so you'll be arriving dead on lunch time. It's a while since I've been there but it's very beautiful and touring it could take some time and then you'll want to eat. So I would want to make sure that I knew that what I wanted to see there was going to be open in the after noon. [BTW, there is a little pull in a couple of kms away from Pitigliano from which you get a fantastic view of the whole city and its "layers"; our Italian teacher stopped there so we could take pictures of it].

Montepulciano is about 1 ½ hours drive further on, Cortona 2 hours. My plan would be to head for Montepulciano but in May, you probably don't need to book in advance if there are just two of you and you aren't that fussy about where you sleep.

You can then apply this to the other days.

As for saying what you might be missing that is an impossible task in Italy. You are bypassing Viterbo en route to Civita di Bagnoregio and missing out Orvieto just beyond that, but there is so much to see that far from trying to see everything you are probably better off just focussing on the things you are interested in and forgetting about the rest.

hope you have a great trip.

StCirq

For a mere 6 days, you've got plenty planned, quite possibly too much. I certainly wouldn't add anything. And unless you have already spent some time in Tuscany, I wouldn't consider Civita di Bagnoregio a great choice. It's a fair bit of logistical hassle to get up to it, and there's not much there. In additon to the mid-day siesta closings, I trust you also know about Sunday and Monday closings and how to work your schedule around them.