broadway79

Hi, Everyone! Hoping you can help us out with your expertise. We are going to Italy and Greece In late May/early June for our honeymoon and we're trying to lock down our itinerary. We'll be spending 4 nights in Tuscany following time in Venice and Cinque Terre. I've been to Florence before, so we thought we would focus on seeing and photographing the hill towns and countryside of Tuscany (I'm a photog). We'd like to see a bit of Chianti and a bit more of the Val d' Orcia in the limited time we have. We'll be flying out of Rome on an 11am flight on our last day in Italy.

So my first question is, where would be a good overnight location for the night before our flight from Rome? Do we need to give up one of our nights in Tuscany? We're open to suggestions. Or is Pienza or the Montepulciano area too far from the airport? We looked on google maps and it appears to be about a 2 hour drive? We weren't planning on going into Rome this trip since our time is so limited (bummer!). We were also planning on renting a car for Tuscany and are nervous about to driving into Rome. One more piece of info is that we'd really like to visit Civita di Bagnoregio since we'll be in the area. So does it make sense to spend the last night somewhere closer to Rome, maybe near CdB and take a train from Orvieto to Rome for our flight in the morning? Or is driving from that area to the airport a safer bet instead of relying on the train system? We don't mind getting up early to drive, but since we're not familiar with the roads, we want to make sure we're not trying to go too far and risk missing our flight. Many thanks for your guidance!

bobthenavigator

The airport is well west of town with a ring road to alow you to drive to the airport all on autostradae and miss Rome.
However, you need to be at the airport 3 hours prior to be safe. I would see Civita/Orvieto the day prior and stay further south the last night. Look at Tarquinia or Santa Marinella on the coast to be 1 hour from FCO.

Jean

Pienza to the airport would be 2.5 hours minimum. Montepulciano would be perhaps 10-15 minutes less only because it's closer to the A1. But lots of things can impact driving times. Personally, I would be nervous spending the night prior to a flight that far from the airport.

Consider staying in Bracciano which is an hour or less from Fiumicino. We made an unplanned stop there once and stayed in an uninspiring B&B. But we happened upon Villa Clementina in our wanderings. I suggested it to a fellow Fodorite (Neopatrick if you can find his trip report) who had a very good last-night-in-Italy experience. This is not Tuscany, but I don't think you'd feel you were sacrificing anything by staying here.

http://www.hotelvillaclementina.it/en/home.php

broadway79

Thanks for your advice, bobthenavigator and Jean! So helpful! I'll look into Tarquinia, Santa Marinella, Bracciano, and of course Villa Clementina. I had a feeling Pienza/Montepulciano area might be too far of a drive for the morning of a flight, but I just hated to lose a night in Tuscany! Since it will be our honeymoon, we had also thought about trying to do a castle stay our last night, or two, in Italy, of course somewhere not too far from FCO. Is there one in this area by chance?

HappyTrvlr

There's a castle in Bracciano too.

Jean

Trivia: The castle in Bracciano (Orsini-Odescalchi) was the site of the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes wedding. It's worth a visit if you have time.

http://www.odescalchi.it/