2 Week Trip Cont'd - Opinions on First Stab Itinerary

Do NOT feel that you "are shortchanging a lot"! This is your first trip to Italy...as you already realize, there will be more! On our first trip we spent nine nights at one location near Florence. Could we have moved faster and seen more? Of course--but, more than a year after that trip, I can remember the places we visited each day and, more importantly, what I enjoyed most each day.

You will want to make a list of your "must sees" in Florence before deciding whether or not to stop in Lucca/Pisa. My two cents: Lucca is wonderful! But, if you stop there en route to Florence you'll have only one full day left for Florence. Again, you would NOT be shortchanging Florence as this is your trip--just something you will want to consider.

We rented our car in Florence. One of our day trips was to Siena; others may chime in with specifics about your rental plans. (Dropped it in Bologna as we flew from there.) Each driver needs an International Driver's Permit (IDP), available at your local AAA office. There are numerous threads on this website regarding the pros/cons of driving in Italy. It worked well for us to have one driver and one navigator--and to remember to pack a sense of humor each day as we set out on our adventures:). Driving wasn't terrible--but it IS different, so you do need to be aware of those differences. (You have plenty of time to read up on these.)

You are well on your way to having a terrific plan for an Italian vacation that will meet YOUR travel style. Enjoy the planning...it does help the time to pass while waiting for those travel dates to arrive!

Thanks, Den. We will definitely read up on the car rental and driving.

Any thoughts on flying into Florence and out of Rome? I have seen most discussions talking about flying into and out of the Rome & Venice airports. Is that just because most people are visiting those cities also? I have seen that there are several other airports also (Milan, Pisa, etc) and from my very few air searches all appear to be in the same price range. Just curious about this and want to make sure there is no big mistake by perhaps flying into Florence.

The closer you can get to your first stop by air, the better. The same at the end of the trip. But sometimes travelers finds a huge price difference between flying into a big city and flying into the smaller, more convenient one, or perhaps the schedules into and out of the big cities are much better. You have to look at your particular situation.

The huge advantage of flying into the city where your trip begins rather than having to add on a significant inter-city train trip after your flight is that there's no guessing about the schedule for the final part of the trip. It's impossible to know how much time you'll need between your flight's scheduled arrival time and the departure time of the train. Your flight might be late (it might even be canceled), or there might be an unbelievable delay as you go through Immigration. That means you'll either be paying the full walk-up fare for the train ticket when you arrive (and the next train might possibly be sold out) or taking a chance on a non-refundable/non-changeable ticket. If you buy the non-refundable ticket and miss the train, you'll have to buy a new ticket at the walk-up rate. If you build in a lot of extra time before the train departure, you may end up cooling your heels in a train station for hours as you get sleepier and sleepier.

Thank you acraven!

If we are flying into Florence perhaps we should consider doing our 3 Florence nights right away and then head to CT afterwards? Do you have a better suggestion for our itinerary?

Thanks!

It comes down to saving at least 2 hours and a bit of hassle on Day 6 by going to Cinque Terre (I'm assuming Monterosso for these calculations) on your arrival day. If you visit Florence (3) and then C.T. (3), it will take you at least 3-1/2 hours to get to Siena by train unless you want to wait until after 11 AM to leave (that train's just over 3 hours), and you'll need to change trains at least twice. If you instead start out from Florence that day, there are at least hourly trains that take only 1-1/2 hours, and they do not require a change.

So do you want to spend that extra two hours on Day 6, when you're raring to pick up the car and start exploring Tuscany, or do you want to spend the two hours getting to C.T. on your arrival day when you may well be too brain-dead to enjoy sightseeing anyway? On a relatively short trip like this, two hours is pretty significant, but it's certainly not critical. I don't think staying in Florence initially would be a mistake.

There is one other thing, though: If you got to C.T. first, you might opt to simply pick up your car in Florence rather than first needing to get on a train. That would make for somewhat less hassle. However, I know nothing about the difficulty of driving away from the pick-up point in Florence. There may be very good reasons to travel to Siena to pick up the car.

Yes, thank you. All makes sense. Have not researched enough yet to know where the best car pick-up is, and also do not know the sites we want to see in Florence and/or Siena. I am assuming also that we will be tired/foggy once getting to Italy so part of me thought train time immediately would be ok to just kind of go with the flow and get to a destination.

Also part of the thinking of going immediately to CT was to sort of mix up our events.....coastline/quaint, then city sights in Florence, Tuscany wineries/quaint, then again Rome and city/sights. However, it does sound like it could be dicey to arrive then immediately expect trains and transportation arrangements to behave perfectly. We may be too braindead to think properly if all doesn't go according to plan!

All good insights and timing ideas you gave to help steer the order of things.

We used AutoEurope (as we do for all our european rentals)
https://www.autoeurope.com
Booked a Hertz rental from the Sansovino location - which is outside the ZTL- just south of center of Florence. Took a cab there from our hotel. Was super easy to head to Siena from that location and the drive was lovely.

We dropped our car in Spoleto before train to Rome but that's because we were in Assisi.
Another option is to drop your car in Orvieto- right next to train statin then train to Rome from there.
Or drop car in Chiusi- which is closer to Montepulciano