Bologna base

Hi Amber, I would recommend staying in Florence to see Florence & Pisa. Then go to Venice and stay there. Venice is magical but especially after the mid-morning to late afternoon day tourists have left. If you stay overnight, you will really see Venice as you linger over dinner at an outdoor cafe or take a gondola ride in the evening. If not, try to move away from the Rialto Bridge-to-San Marco path because that's especially crowded during the day. Enjoy!

Depends on how many day trips to each place. For example, if you go to Florence only once it's ok, but otherwise it might become expensive, the round trip ticket is 50 euro per person.
The one way travel time is about 40 min. to Florence, 85 min. to Venice, about 2 hours to Pisa.

Thank you for your reply. I will talk to my group about this
A

thank you for your input, this is sooo helpful

In my opinion, you're getting it backwards. On the map, it's true that Bologna appears to be a "central" place from which to see all of these places. The problem is that, while Pisa is a day trip (or half day trip; combine it with Lucca to make a good day), the others deserve more than a day. Furthermore, unless you have a special interest, Bologna doesn't deserve that much time. I personally didn't like Bologna at all; to be fair, though, many do like it a lot. But I think even its ardent fans wouldn't rate it above Florence or Venice for a first time visitor. From Bologna, I saw Parma, Ferrara, Ravenna, and Modena as day trips; these are on local trains and so are not expensive. How many days do you have for your trip, and what are the places you want to see? If you post this, others can help you plan your itinerary and you overnight stays (particularly Roberto, who, being from Florence, is wonderful at this skill).

We enjoyed a day in Bologna, saw the main sights and that was enough. It was fine but I would never give up staying in Florence or Venice. I love both of these places. You can easily daytrip to Pisa from Florence and include the lovely Lucca on the same day if you wish. As previous poster stated, Venice is magical later in the day and evening after the crowds have thinned out. From Venice daytrips can easily be made to Verona, Padova and Vicenza just to name a few. How many people are in your group? You may be able to rent an apartment with several bedrooms and bathrooms cheaper than staying in a hotel. This past July I rented apts.in great locations in Venice, Florence and Rome for our group of 4. Had 2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms and we had lots of room.

We have 34 wonderful days in Italy.The majority will be in Rome Region (the first 12 days and last 4. This is my husband and I 20th anniv. Possibly 8 other people will be joining, but i'm planning based on the 2 of us. Any one can join us :). Rome is mostly planned, now starting on Northern Italy. I'm trying to figure a good base and time frame to spend in Tuscany to see the "side trip" places. Saturnia Therma Hot Spring is must for me. I'm thinking of spending one or two nights in Florence proper and Venice, but other than that i'm a bit overwhelmed. any and all help is appreciate. i hope i didn't overwhelm the forum.

You can see San Marino from Bologna, but nobody ever thinks of it.

You can see San Marino from Bologna Gordon, you have better eyes than me. I can't see 130 km.

Can't address whether or not Bologna would be a good base but can tell you that my husband and I stayed there for three days before heading to Venice to start a RS Venice, Florence and Rome tour and we loved Bologna. It was a wonderful place to recover from jet lag and the lack of tourists was refreshing. We took the train to Parma and toured cheese and crudo factories which added to the charm!!! Happy travels!