Tuscany vacation
 

I will be going to Tuscany the second week in September. We rented a villa in San Casciano. We decided not to rent a car because of the expence, if anyone has any info on public transportation in that area thanks for sharing.

Which San Casciano ?

For either one of the San Cascianos, it'd be a big mistake (IMO) to not rent a car. You'd be missing out on much of the scenic beauty of rural Tuscany - roads and places that don't have public transportation.

Well, if you are in San Casciano Val di Pesa, yo are on a main highway that links Florence and Siena. There should be regular buses along that route to either city. Of course, if you are in a villa, you may not be near the highway and will have to find out how far you actually are from town. You will need to get into town to buy food and such anyway. If you are in San Casciano dei Bagni, you are in the middle of nowhere and will definitely need a car to do anything. I don't understand not getting a car when you get a house or villa rental. If you want to settle in for a long stay outside of a town, it seems to me to go hand in hand with having a car to explore the out of the way places.

I addition merely exploring, a car is needed to get to markets for food, restaruants, and wineries.

Get a car.

Are you still out there, jmcard ? I'd agree with the other posters about a car being preferable when renting a villa. But if you're set on not doing, and it's San Casciano in Val di Pesa, I can share what we noticed re buses there. Maybe you are even renting the same villa as us (Il Giogo) ?

This is my first time posting on Fodors. Thanks for all your replies. After reading all We have decided to rent a car. It does seem silly not to explore the countryside. Our villa is Villa Casciano about a mile and a half to the town of San Casciano Val Di Pesa. If anyone out there has gone please let me know. Thanks again.

Hello again jmcard. Our villa was also a couple of miles outside town and most of us felt we needed a car just to get into town to go shopping, never mind going anywhere else. (The 2 really fit demon walkers did walk into town, however.)

The buses all stopped in the centre of town, just under the walls near the market. We considered getting a bus into Florence but it seemed too difficult - we'd have had to drive into town and find somewhere where we could leave the car all day (not easy), before getting the bus. So we did just drive everywhere. We did feel a car was essential, even though we didn't go out all that much - we just spent most of our time by the pool at the villa.

It may be that your villa is right on a main bus route, near a bus stop, but it's not very likely. I think you are wise to get a car.

For shopping there were a couple of nice small butchers, greengrocers etc in the centre of town; plus a medium-sized Co-op supermarket on the outskirts for basics (or if you are not confident going into small shops, it wasn't bad for fresh produce too - Italian supermarkets are so much better than ours).

Unfortunately I can't remember which side of town we were (south or north) so I can't tell you which side the Co-op was, but it was very easy to find - there's basically one main north-south road which bypasses the town centre, and you can see the Co-op from it just as you're leaving (or entering) town.

The market was mainly not food, but I think it had one or two cheese/cured meats stalls.