We will be spending a week in tuscany in mid-September. Where do you recommend we base ourselves? We will have a car and want someplace that is easy to navigate in and out of. Any recommendations on appartments to stay? There will be 4 of us. If we spend 7 nights in Tuscany, will we have time to spend a day in Florence or should we spend additional nights there? We have 14 days and Plan for 2 or 3 days in Rome. Would like to fit in Venice if possible. I am not a huge museum person, but do want to See David and do some shopping. This is my first time in Italy but my mom has been before.

Spend some time at slowtrav.com
Look at the area south of Siena.

With 14 days, you will have plenty of time to spend 2 or 3 in Venice. It is the most wonderful city and not to be missed.

I was hoping to get some suggestions from people who have been and stayed before. I looked at slowtrav.com but only got more confused. One person recommended Castellina-in-Chianti as a base. Would that be a good one?

If you are going to be there for 7 days, why not rent a villa or apt - that make the most sense if there are 4 of you.

I love the area south of Siena (like bobthenavigator said)around Pienza.

Within the last 2 weeks there have been about 7 threads on almost this exact same subject - perhaps do a click on my name or bobthenavigator's to find them. Sometimes we get a little tired of responding to the same question many times in the same day/week.

You will see that I have an Italy Itinerary that over 240 people have requested. E-mail me at [email protected] if you want a copy - there is a lot of info about Tuscany in it

Stu Dudley

Hi Buglady,

I'll give my opinion, although many of our posters here have visited Italy much more.

On my last trip, we stayed in Chianti - specifically the tiny village of San Sano which is about a 20 minute drive north from Siena on the Chianti highway. We absolutely loved it! The village is strictly residential just a few families, 1 trattoria, and the Hotel Residence San Sano where we stayed.

It's on a hilltop in the middle of olive groves and vineyards. Very quiet, picturesque. The hotel is a 4 star, in an old building with the usual open timbered roofs in the rooms. Breakfast is included and is served in the front herb garden under a wisteria-draped arbor. Dinner is optional and excellent. Very nice pool. The local trattoria is also extremely good and we ate there 2 nights out of 4.

We did day trips to San Gimignano, Volterra, Greve, Siena, and lunch at La Badia di Colibuono (SP?). The driving was easy, but the Chianti roads are winding and take a bit longer than expected.

I found that I got tired of driving back to the same place and wondered if it would have been better to move around more rather than feeling like I was backtracking every day. I travel light and don't mind moving.

When I go back (in mid-Sept.), the Tuscany/Umbria part of my trip is:

Assisi - 1 night
pick up car
Cortona -- 1 night
Montalcino - 3 nights
last night - undecided

Depending on which towns you want to visit, I would recommend splitting your time between northern (Chianti)and southern (Montepulciano or Pienza) Tuscany, or maybe Chianti and Orvieto or Todi.

This would mean finding a "self-catering" place that will accept less than a week stay. In planning my trip, I've found quite a few.

If you do want to stay in one place for a week, pick one that is outside the walls of a hilltown. Driving and parking will be much easier! You can always walk into town for dinner or site seeing.

Venice is wonderful, get 3 nights there. Also, the next time I visit Florence, it will be as a day trip rather than staying in the city. I didn't care much for Florence except for the fabulous art.

Again, this is just my opinion. Buon viaggio!

I,too, tend to divide Tuscany into north and south. This year we will stay in Lucca and Greve to cover the north. The last two years we stayed in Greve and Florence.
Last year we stayed in Montalcino and the year before a place near Buonconvento.This was perfect for the south. We plan to do the same this year.
A couple years ago we spent 14 days in Tuscany (with a few days at Lake Como added on) and added Umbria.
While we did a few days more at Lake Como (plus a week in France), we found 14 days perfect to split among 3 locations. We, however, did not stay in a place that required a weeks stay.
This Sept. we will probably stay in Tuscany and Umbria for about 12 days and add Rome for 4 (we did 8 last year).
Florence and other larger cities,IMHO, need more than a day to really enjoy them.You could do a day trip there and see David, do some shopping and have a good day.
Rome,IMHO, needs much more than 2 days to appreciate.
If it were me ,I'd spend 3/4 nights in Chianti (include a day trip to Florence).
Spend 3 nights in Montalcino and 3 in Assissi. This leaves you with finishing in Rome.
Fly into FLR and leave from Rome.

I absolutely agree with splitting your time in Tuscany...which is what we did on our last trip in April. Many people prefer to stay in one place, but we love the change of scenery and don't mind packing up after three or four days.

We stayed part of the time in Montalcino and the other part in Castellina. One purpose was to split our time between being in a town and being in the countryside. The other was to not feel as though we were backtracking, as Dayle mentioned.

Montalcino was an excellent base for visiting Montepulciano, Pienza, Bagno Vignoni, San Quirico, Sant'Antimo, etc.

Castellina was perfect for Siena, San Gim, Greve, Radda, etc. All these towns are charming, and you would probably enjoy staying in most of them.

If you have the choice of an open jaw ticket, and if you must include Venice, this is a suggested draft itinerary:

Arrive Rome, stay 3 nights
Drive to Montalcino area, stay 3 nights
Drive to Castellina area, stay 2 nights
Drive to Florence, drop off car and stay 2 nights.
Train to Venice for 3 nights and fly home from Venice.

Hope this helps.

I agree with the last poster, splitting your time between north and south Tuscany. We did this, and found the time very relaxing. We stayed in outside Montalcino, and then in Greve in Chianti. There is a place in Greve that has some apartments and doubles, it is a B&B owned by a castle/winery there. If you are interested I can give you some infor. It was very reasonable. With these locations you can easily visit Siena and Florence as much as you like depending on your interest. If you want to see Venice, I would suggest starting there 3 days, train or drive to Tuscany. You can drop your car in florence, spend one or two night there and train to Rome.

buglady59,
See my trip report for ideas in Tuscany.
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34494897

Hi budlady,

I love the itinerary suggestions of Lorac and Jebez.

Lorac & Jebez, how was staying in Montalcino? Any dining recommendations?

We spent a week at a villa outside Siena. It was a great location to do day trips in our rental car to explore.

I love Lucca, it is central to everything (like Florence) yet not as crowded (or touristy) as Florence. You are still within day train trips to Siena, San Gimignano, etc.

We stayed in an apartment in Montepulciano last May that was in the city itselt but had its own gated car park. Easy in and out when we were going to explore other cities. But Montepulciano is such a wonderful town. We spent almost a week there wandering around and still didn't get to all of it. The apt. was lovely and right in the middle of things. The price was also very reasonable. Here is the website for it:

http://web.tiscali.it/poggiolo/

Hope this helps.

Thank you all for the info. I think I like the idea of splitting my time between northern and southern tuscany. Now I'm wondering if I should save Venice for another time and just spend the two weeks exploring tuscany.

Dayle
Montalcino is a great town to stay in. I still fondly remember opening the shutters in our room (Palazzina Cesira) and stepping out onto a small balcony and watching the activity of the town "waking up". A group of Canadians asked us to take their picture from our view and then they took ours.
In town we loved Grappolo Blu and slightly out of town Boccondivino for great food.
Make sure and read the book "Vanilla Beans and Brodo" before you go.

Dayle, we loved staying Montalcino. It is such a charming town with so many great restaurants either in the town or a short distance away. Parking was a little hairy though with a manual. Our innkeepers took pity on us and were gracious enough to park our car every evening.

We thoroughly enjoyed Tre Sciame, Taverna Del Grappolo Blu and Buoccon di Vino. But there are restaurants recommended to us that we just did not have enough time to get to: Re di Macchia, Pizzeria Il Dado, Osteria di Porta al Cassero, as well as wine bars and enoteccas.

jebez, we stayed right across the street from you at the Il Giglio.

buglady, we went to Italy twice before we got to Venice. It was so difficult to eliminate Venice but necessary. We finally got there this year and three nights were not nearly enough! We hope to plan another trip next year and get back there...we loved it!

Lorac and Jabez,

Thanks for the input on Montalcino. I'll take the resturant names with me! I'm also staying at Il Giglio and will be driving. Would it be a good idea to park outside the walls in public parking and scout my way to the hotel first? Lorac, how was Il Giglio?

We mistakenly ended up driving within Montepulciano last time and it was memorable to say the least!!!

Ok I think I have decided to concentrate on Tuscany this time Around. I had decided on Montalcino area for Southern Tuscany, but still uncertain on the Northern part. I would like to see Lucca, Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Volterra, Greve
I'm not sure if it would be better to find a central place and do day trips to the others or bounce from one place to the next. Would it be better to do these via train/bus or would a car be better? I have 6 days to see all of the above before we head south for the last week.

buglady, probably the best think you can do to help you make a decision is to look at a good map of Tuscany and highlight the towns you want to visit. A good location to stay in will then pop out at you.

So many of the towns you mentioned are just lovely and everyone has their favorite for different reasons. Some people want to walk to dinner, some don't want steep towns, some want something isolated, others want to be in the town. You need to decide what is most important to you.

Having chosen to stay in Castellina and Montalcino on our last trip, we would have been just as happy in Pienza, Greve, Panzano, San Gim....they are all terrific.

Dayle, follow the directions to Il Giglio and pull up in front of the hotel as close to the wall as you can. Then, check in and ask where to park your car. The owner will invariably say that he will be glad to park it for you. There is a lot way up a steep hill where you can park, but we just didn't have the energy for that after sightseeing all day. So he parked the car every night for us...delightful!

The hotel is small and clean and family run. The innkeepers are very nice but a bit reserved. There is no elevator but they will carry your bags up if you need help. The dining room is cute, with picture windows with a beautiful view, so we enjoyed our breakfasts there very much. My only complaint was that their pillows were very hard and they had nothing softer. So we rolled up a soft fleece jacket to use as a pillow! They also did some laundry for us quickly and perfectly.