Advice for Tuscany

I think 5 days in Rome is plenty.
Not sure you have time for all of your planned day trips in Tuscany, unless doing one of those bus style tours that take you to multiple places all in the same day.

The main issue you are going to have without a car is that you really should base yourself in Florence if you want to take public transit or even tours to these different places each day. No other place will be as convenient in terms of logistics.

I have been to Florence twice as well as Pisa twice and the other places you mentioned once.

You can do Pisa and Lucca in one day and Siena and San Gimignano in one day. Florence is the obvious place to stay for the four days. Not familiar with Greve. We loved the Hotel Balesteri on the Arno in Florence. There is a lot more than art in Florence. You really should go to Academia and see David. It is amazing.

One day in Florence, even without going to museums is too short. You will want to see the Doumo, it is closed I think one day a week. Try to go to San Croche church, it has the tombs of many amazing people like Galileo (minus his finger), Dante, Machiavelli and others.

Florence is your best choice for a Tuscany home base due to public transit options for Pisa and Lucca, meaning trains. As for Chianti wine tasting, tours run out of Florence, or if budget allows, perhaps a private driver? In 2014, my DH and I did a bus tour from Florence into Chianti arranged through the TI, which was very affordable and nice. I'm betting there are plenty of tours of all types out of Florence to San G and Siena.

Do you have anything lined up in Greve? I have some suggestions.

Are you flying out of Rome? Remember, you have to schedule in time to get from Rome to Tuscany and back. That could chew into a significant part of 2 of your 9 days.

To give you some perspective, on our trip to Tuscany we budgeted the following:
Florence - 1 day. We stayed in Greve and rode the bus to and back. We left at 6:45 and returned at 8:00 that night. We had been to Florence before. If I had to do it over again, I would have budgeted at least two days in Florence (a month would be even better!)

Siena - 1 day. I think it would be hard to spend less than a full day there if you have to travel.

San Gimignano/Volterra - 1 day. This was just enough time. Again, we got up early and arrived at San Gimignano by 8:00. We ate lunch, then drove to Volterra where we were treated to a spectacular sunset before returning home around 9:00.

Pisa/Lucca - These were on our itinerary, but we just ran out of time. We wanted to go to vespers at Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore, which was in the opposite direction from Pisa/Lucca. We decided to amble down to Monte Oliveto instead.

Greve - Our home base was the agriturismo Castillo di Verrazzano. We flew into Rome on Sunday, arriving mid morning and hopped in our rental car and headed to Greve. We decided before we left to make Monday a down day. After a leisurely breakfast, we returned at 11:00 for the winery tour and did the wine and food pairing for lunch. It was wonderful and took most of the afternoon. We then drove the 5 minutes to Greve and wandered around the main square until about 7:30. We made it an early night since we had to be up by 5:30 to make the bus to Florence.

I hope this shows your schedule is do-able. If you plan to only do one day in Florence, unless you want to use public transportation and tours, I suggest you stay outside the city as your home base. There's no way I'd use it as a home base if I were planning to drive. BTW, driving through the Tuscan countryside was as enjoyable as visiting the cities.

Yeah, four days for Tuscany is too short. If necessary I would steal one day from Rome. If you don't like museums you do not need five days in Rome.

You need a minimum of two days in Florence alone to see even the essentials. Don't forget ... you lose time traveling from one city to another even with the high speed trains. Then getting to your hotel. We are in Tuscany right now and I suggest assuming a half day travel time between cities, taxi from the train to the hotel, checking into hotel and getting your bearings.

Two nights in Florence, two nights in Sienna, and your four days are gone. And it's not that easy to get to the small towns by train! Lucca is not too difficult, apparently. We rented a car (for pick-up after leaving Florence) and have eight more days to tour the best places Rick recommends. I doubt we could do it in much less time.

Cheers, Peter, in Tuscany

Keith,

I like your general plan. I'm sure 5 days in Rome will be enough to get your legs under you and wet your appetite for a future visit.

I would make Florence your other base of sightseeing. Pisa and Lucca are easily done as a self-guided day trip via train or bus. I would also suggest taking an escorted tour of the Chianti wine region. Although driving in Italy is fairly easy, why not let someone else do the driving if you are visiting wineries? WalkAbout Florence has a particularly nice tour (here) which we enjoyed immensely.

If you haven't made travel reservations yet, I would fly into Rome and out Florence, Pisa or Bologna (shuttle buses are available to Pisa and Bologna airports). I would also recommend looking into short-term rentals instead of hotels. My personal rule is 3 days or more in one location, I look for an apartment. We had particularly nice apartments in Rome (Piazza Navona) and Florence (Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini).

Agreed. Apartment rentals are easy to find on the air b and b site. Not just bed and breakfast places.

after leaving florence we have apartments booked in Panzano in Chianti and in Montepulciano. Both have free parking for the rental car that we will get at the airport. And the pass to drive into the towns.

Renting a car at the airport = no need to drive in the heart of Florence.

I found a ricksteves article online. Florence in one day.... a very long day starting at 830am. Would be better over two days, of course.