Day Trip to Tuscany by car from Livorno

Hello llr2020, welcome to the forum!

If you're not accustomed to driving in Europe I wouldn't necessarily recommend a car as the best form of transportation. And given the time constraints of returning the car and getting back to your ship I would recommend the train or something arranged by someone else.

Pisa is easily achievable from Livorno - about 20 minutes - by train and you can add Lucca - another 30 minutes by train - if you think one town is not enough. Or even Pisa then Florence - 1+ hour by train - if you want to see the sights there.

There is an industry of day trips for cruise passengers from Livorno. I haven't used them for shore excursions but I did use this company for local guides in towns and they were very good.
https://en.turislucca.com/guided-tours-for-individuals/

If you really want to drive I would suggest driving to Pisa (30 min) and then if you want the classic non-touristy Tuscan hill town experience I would suggest drive to Volterra (1.5 hours or so) or if you want the touristy one go a little further to San Gimignano. And the drive back the long way back south through the countryside for some of that rural Tuscan landscape and then to the coast and back to Livorno (1-2 hours).

If you want to drive get an International drivers license before you go and read up on Italian driving rules and especially ZTLs to avoid expensive tickets.

Hope that helps, have a great trip!
=Tod

Tod, thank you SO much for your response! Planning can be overwhelming, and it’s great to be able to get experienced travelers’ advice.

Based on experience in driving in Tuscany, I would not attempt to rent a car drive from somewhere else, drive in Tuscany then return the car later that day.

I'm sure a many of the thousands of your new friends will have the same idea. We rented a car at the Rome airport. There was no one else in line before us, but even then it took at least 45 minutes to do the paperwork and hit the road. It was the same when we rented a car at the Paris airport. If your ship arrives at 9:00, it will take time to disembark, get to the rental office, do the paperwork and start your drive. This will take at least a 1 1/2 hours and maybe much longer.

My suggestion is to look at what bus tours are offered. The advantage would be if you found one with a winery tour (if that interests you), then you can sample without worry of driving, since Italy has a very low threshold for blood alcohol when driving.

This is kind of like saying our cruise ship docks in Boston and we want to drive through New England.

DougMac, I see what you mean. A driving day trip into the Tuscan hills may be a bit ambitious for two newbies. It’s just that we would enjoy the freedom and flexibility a car would give us. Wishing doesn’t make it feasible, though. Sounds like the Tuscan region deserves at least a week, not a partial day. Thank you for responding.

It’s just that we would enjoy the freedom and flexibility a car would give us.

I totally understand. We loved the ability to explore the region by car during our week's stay. The freedom and flexibility you mention would be very hard to accomplish and enjoy during what might well end up being little more than half a day.

I hope this trip whets your appetite and you have a chance to return with more time. We travel independently and more and more of our trips are to one base from which we just relax and take little side trips.

I wish I could post photos here, because I have a photo of my wife standing in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We met on a high school trip to Europe in 1966 and have been going steady ever since. She was 14 when I took the photo. We've been able to return to Europe together several times since then.

Have a wonderful trip and I hope you can work something out and see at least a smidge of Tuscany.

hey hey llr2020
tuscany covers a big area, i wouldn't rent a car at all (if you do you will need and IDP: AAA.com/IDP)
your time in port will go by fast, please don't miss the departing, seen it happen and no fun. even if ship arrives at 9am exactly what time will you get off ship? take the train to pisa rossore or pisa centrale and walk to tower (opapisa.it) or take a taxi. always be careful for pickpockets, hide your jewels & $$$, decide what you want to do. just stop to take picture, do the complete tour.
towerofpisa.org
read the headers about history/historical facts/tourist info.
getyourguide.com/pisa or port of livorno
look to see if you like one of the tours at the tower
tripsavvy.com/best things to do in livorno
visit the central market with many shops, restaurants. stop at a wine bar and ask if they do a flight tasting of different white and red wines along with appetizers.
sometimes we have stopped at taxi stand and ask them to take us on a tour around the town and fields (let them give us ideas, bartered on a cost with cash euros, how many hours to be back at ship before sailing, back to port restaurant for appetizers/white & red wine. enjoyed the day.
we registered on cruise critic (free), found ship's name and forum, posted if anyone wanted to share cost of private tour. wanted small group 4-6 people, agreed what you all want with some compromises. taxi met us at port and off we went, very adament about time
hope you find something that suits you, look at cruisemapper.com, ports, date your ship in port and see how many other are there same day. could be many thousands with wanting to all do same thing. gets so crowded with looooong lines, restaurants packed, upset and nasty folks. just be prepared. enjoy & have fun, enjoy italy, eat gelato and tiramisu!
aloha

DougMac, y’all’s love story sounds almost like ours! When we were 15, we became high school sweethearts, then married at age 20 in 1977. Have been going steady ever since! Love your suggestion of having a home base and taking short day trips. If blessed enough to make return trips, we’ll definitely follow that advice. Thank you, again, for taking the time to respond.

Princess Pupule, great suggestions! Especially love your cruise critic forum idea, where we may find like-minded travelers. So thankful for this forum. If I hadn’t asked, we would have rented that car, been super rushed, and it would have been “no good”. Thank you!