We've (my wife and I) been to Italy several times. Twice each Sorrento/Capri, Florence, Rome, Venice and Como. However, we've never visited the smaller cities/towns.

We travel almost exclusively by train with the odd short bus ride thrown in. I do not plan on renting a car.

We're not big museum goers or church visitors although we've been to the Ufizzi twice, the Pitti Palace and the Accademia. Years ago I climbed the stairs to the top of the Duomo in Florence. I'd like to go back to at least see The David again. We could go to another museum or two if it catches our interest.

At this point the plan is to use Florence as a base, spend a few days in Florence and do day trips. I expect we might want to do one or two over night trips although we would keep the base Florence hotel.

Trips planned are Pisa/Lucca (possibly turn this into an overnight and sleep in La Spezia to visit the Portofino area the next day), San Gimignano, Siena (possibly turn this and SG into an overnight spending the evening in Siena and not returning to Florence that evening), Arezzo/Cortona and Orvieto.

That would be either 5 or 6 days of daytrips out of 10 days.

My concern is that we might get daytripped out. However, I don't really see us wanting to be in Florence more than 4 days. We could also make short jumps to Fiesole and/or Pistoia.

Any comments?

I think you need to start with where you will be flying in or out. If in/out of Rome, I would spend the first two nights in Orvieto (daytrip Bagnoregio).

I guess I should have mentioned.

We'll be flying into and out of Florence.

Well, you've sort of painted yourselves into a corner. You want to use Florence as a base, but you don't want to spend the majority of your time in Florence. You want to visit 8 other towns (in 10 days!), but you don't want to be day-tripped out.

I think you should pick 2 or 3 towns from your list to sleep in and spend only the first and last (or both) nights in Florence. You don't want to rent a car, but at least half of your exploring would be easier and more time-efficient with a car.

You might do better to base in Lucca and day trip to Firenze to see David.

Portofino is not a convenient day trip from La Spezia, You should come up further -- probably to Santa Margeherita Ligure, which is on the train line, and you can bus or walk to Portofino from there (or take a boat, in season).

San Gimingnano is the only destination on your list that I think would be easier with a car. Can you live without it?

For 10 days, I would consider 4 in Lucca,, 2 in Santa Magherita Ligure, and split the remainder between Siena and Orvieto. flying out of Rome or coming back to Pisa.

Sorry! I now grasp you are flying in and out of Firenze.

Okay. So come back to Firenze for your last day.

Zeppole, Jean,

Thanks for your comments and ideas.

After changing locations many times on previous trips, now that we're getting older we want to try a trip with minimum (in this case zero) changes this time.

We are not opposed to spending several days in Florence. In fact we plan to.

Jean seems to have gotten the impression that I want to do 8 day trips.

Let me build it.

Pisa/Lucca with the emphasis by far on Lucca.

San Gimignano a good part of the day. Then move over to Siena late in the afternoon to spend the evening and sleep over. Siena the next day and return to Florence in the evening.

Orvieto.

Arezzo and Cortona.

That would be 5 days out of 10.

We could add another day if we go to Portofino. I don't envision going to Portofino directly from Florence so the best way would be the evening of the Pisa/Lucca day trip.

The idea would be to go to La Spezia from Lucca in the evening of that day trip. That train ride would be just over an hour and manageable. In the morning, leave for Santa Margherita Ligure (again just over an hour) and Portofino. Since we'd be doing this in late June we could most likely take a boat to Portofino.

Zeppole, I realize it might be more efficient to go directly to SML from Lucca but that would have us getting there quite late in the evening and having taken a train ride of over 2 hours.

In addition we could take short diversions from Florence to Fiesole and/or Pistoia.

Does any of this reasoning make sense?

No, I got it that these are not 8 separate day trips, but 8 towns besides Florence in 10 days (not counting Florence, Fiesole and/or Pistoia) is a lot of moving around regardless of where you lay your head every night.

Myer,

You know me! I prefer to travel light, move a bit more, and not backtrack endlessly. I'll drive all over, but not in the cities. Are you dead set against a car? So much freedom and flexibility to explore! Driving in the countryside is a breeze and lots of fun!

I love the small towns and feel very strongly that you don't really get a true sense of them unless staying a night or two.

I would plan your trip in a loop starting and ending in Florence..do the Ligurian Coast by train, Pisa and Lucca, pick up your car and stay in a SMALL hilltown for 4 nights, doing day trips out and returning to experience the magic of evening - when pretty much all the tourists are gone.

My 2 cents for what it's worth!

Your schedule is difficult without a car. It's not easy to get around Tuscany without a car since buses don't always run when you are ready to move on to the next town and trains don't go to many of the towns. You will find yourself killing time waiting on transportation. Since you are considering staying overnight a few times, I would just staying in Siena the first two nights before moving on to Florence. I really don't see the difference in starting out there and doing an overnight/day trip. One nighters eat up time (finding your hotel/checking in/getting familiar with the town/transport. Personally, I'm not a fan of Lucca and would drop that and go directly to SML.

We've set out a few goals that I think I will try to stick with.

Dayle, glad to see you're also straddling both side of the pond.

Since spending a week hiking in Utah last spring I've had hip replacement surgery (June) and my wife has had knee surgery (Aug).

In the past we've changed locations every couple of days and walked all day. This time we're trying to stick to one place, relax on relatively short (under 1.5 hours) train rides going and returning. We still expect to walk a lot at each destination. But age has suddenly brought more aches and pains. (Also, I want to save something for a possible trip to Yellowstone a month or so later).

I do appreciate the comments and suggestions and definitely plan on considering them.

More please. Thanks.

Myer,

I'm sorry to hear you have both new replacement parts, but it's good those are available. My Mom had her knee done at age 73, made a great recovery and now she jokes that it's the only part on her that DOES work!

Anyway, lots of people here have used one of the private Tuscany tour guides to pick them up and tour hilltowns/wineries in the countryside. Maybe that would be a good option for a day or two.

Happy planning and buon viaggio!

Dayle,

My wife only had meniscus surgery. She's just getting rid of the limp she developed over 3-4 months of pain.

I suddenly started to have bad pain last Oct and had a hip replacement at the start of June.

We should be back on our bikes (casual) within a month.

As usual, we expect to walk a lot on this trip. We just want to try a trip without lugging our luggage around. The price you pay for this convenience is limited day trip distances that fan out from the base. Obviously, we expect to constantly be returning to the base. Except for any sleepovers.

The problem with bus tours is that my wife gets sick on buses (trains are great - that bus from Sorrento to Positano didn't work out well - a year or so later she stayed in Sorrento and I braved the bus ride to Positano and Almalfi) and while I can be out at the crack of dawn my wife usually negotiates a slightly later start to the day.

Myer,

The Tuscany tours I was thinking of are car/van type tours. Usually private with just the two of you. There are several here that gt recommended quite a lot. One is Lucca Garapa and his company is something like hillsandroads?

Your La Spezia/Portofino plan makes sense and you could end up having a lot of fun in this non-touristsy place, and eat very well. I have plans to visit the highly regarded modern art museum there sometime soon.

I've not checked the train times, but Orvieto sounds to me like too-far a day trip, and I'm not sure I'd want to try to see both Cortona and Arezzo into a single day.

Zeppole,

Thanks for your valuable comments.

We could take a 10:27 arriving at 12:07 from Florence to Orvieto and return on any of several trains between 18L00 and 20:16.

For Lucca to La Spezia we could take 18:31, 19:31 OR 20:31 and arrive an hour and fifteen minutes later.

In the morning we could go from La Spezia to SML at 10:00 and arrive in an hour. The long ride would be back to Florence where it would take about 3 hours. That's a bit long so I'll rethink that.

Why would you not want to see both Cortona and Arezzo on the same day? Do they have a lot more to see than I anticipate? Which would you choose over the other?

Thanks.

Myer,

I think I'm just lazier than you! I tend to poke around a lot -- Arezzo was to me a fairly large place, but I live in an Italian village. I tend to quit early on being a tourist and repair for a long lunch. My husband doesn't like to get up early, and I quit doing everything at 5pm.

So put that all together, and I can't fit Arezzo and Cortona into the same day!

As for your long day from Portofino to Firenze, how about stopping in Pisa for dinner? You can no doubt get a good meal not far from the central train station.

Are you just going to carry toothbrushes for your night in La Spezia? (Makes sense to me).

However, have you seen pictures of Portovenere? I think you might get a nicer taste of Liguria by simply going to La Spezia and taking the shortish bus ride to Portovenere and spend the night there. Portovenere is in many ways a much more enjoyable place than Portofino.

PS: You could also take a 15-min bus ride to Lerici from La Spezia, and take a ferry to Portovenere the next day, or vice versa.

Portofino is completely dead except for silly designer label tourist shops. Lerici is a bit more for Italian tourists. Portovenere gets cruise ships, but it's still truer to its Ligurian soul than Portofino.

Portovenere:

http://motionup.emotiondesign.it/CLI...-la-spezia.jpg

http://api.ning.com/files/GL3vuDj7OW...ianRiviera.jpg

Lerici

http://www.ahouseintuscany.co.uk/vil.../22-lerici.jpg

http://www.labranda.it/fotogallery/lerici2.jpg

Be careful when you book a hotel anywhere in Liguria that you do not have lots of steps to climb if you have knee problems.

zeppole,

You are providing great information.

I assume by then there won't be any knee problems.

I will review all and maybe shorten the trip to La Spezia as you suggest.

It's a good thing we have time to decide.

The idea would be to travel very light for overnights. Just what fits in my backpack. Nothing more.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Your welcome!