Venice to Florence without tunnels?
 

Hi,
We need to get from Venice to Florence (actually Siena), and my wife hates tunnels (she is still traumatized by the train from Venice to Florence). Is there a good driving route, from Venice to Florence, with minimal tunnels -- or perhaps from Bologna?
thanks.

The most direct drive Venice to Florence on the A13 then A1 takes you through the Bologna junction, but as you climb into the Apennines you'll find many tunnels. Granted most of them are short, but if your wife doesn't want tunnels then you're going to be hard pressed to find a route with no tunnels. It's a shame, as the Apennines route is quite spectacular, especially as you get to the top then look out over Tuscany.

If you drove Venice to Bologna on the A13, then cut down on to a series of "B" roads (the SS Roads on your map), you may avoid more tunnels, but there will still be a few. Or go east on the A14, then cut west from say Faenza on the smaller roads. This will, of course, take longer than the usual Venice-Florence route.

We have done numerous road trips through Italy and there are essentially tunnels all over the place. Many of them re very short - not the 10 or 12 mikes tunnels under the Alps - but still everywhere.

Not sure what your solution is - since the trains go through as many tunnels as roads (is her problem driving through tunnels or just being in one). If the latter I think you will have to stick to flying - and I don;t think you can from Venice to Florence.

If you tell us your entire itinerary perhaps someone can make alternate suggestions.

Fly.

Do you know that you can use the via Michelin website to see how many tunnels you would travel on any given route?

The Italian word for tunnel is "galleria". Beneath the map that Michelin gives you, it describes everything on the road -- whether the road is curvy, or steep, and it also includes where all the tunnels are located.

So you might want to compare Venice-to-Siena via Florence and Venice to Siena via Faenza and count the number of "gallerie"

PS: You can also ask on the Slow Travel website message board for Italy. They sort of specialize in this kind of ant-eye view of Italy.