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Drive from Florence to Orvieto - stops along the way

My husband and I will be traveling to Italy this summer (July) with our girls (12 & 14). After our stays in Venice and Florence, we are renting a car in Florence and don't have to be at our agriturismo in Orvieto area until after 4pm. (We are staying at the agriturismo for 3 nights, and will have our car the entire time until we leave via train for Rome to finish our trip.) We've never been to Tuscany/Umbria region before, so wanted to get some advice on this part of the trip.

Questions:

Do you think it would be too much to visit 2 spots (we're thinking San Gimignano and Siena) on our way to Orvieto? I'd love to see Siena, but we're open to other recommendations given how much time we have. We'd like to avoid crowds as much as possible, but I know that will be impossible that time of year and for cities like that. Any other spots that would be fun for an active/outdoorsy family with teen/tween girls, who loves authentic experiences and good food? We're open to driving scenic routes, although want to be careful not to get on too crazy of roads as our younger daughter gets carsick easily.

After that, we will have 2 full days with a car to explore from our base in Orvieto. Any advice on must see areas/towns? Our girls are set on seeing Civita, so that is on our must-do list, but we're open to explore other areas off the beaten path. We love hiking, so any suggestions on where we can do that (without getting lost) would be welcome too. ;) We will be busy in Rome after this, so don't want to cram in too much... I actually think we could stay at our farmhouse and pool the entire time if we wanted, but do want to explore a little bit!

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

Posted by
4637 posts

We will do exactly that in May so I am doing some serious homework. We will do Siena, San Gimignano and Monteriggioni as a trip The Best of Toscany while staying in Florence. On our way from Florence to Orvieto we plan to do Montepulciano, Pienza and maybe Castiglione del Lago. Then while being in our villa between Orvieto and Civita we plan to visit these two hill towns and perhaps Todi and whatever will be recommended by locals.

Posted by
11613 posts

From Orbieto, visit Todi. You can combine it with Civita di Bagnoreggio.

Todi has a big parking lot just outside the centro storico, with a bus or shuttle to the main piazza.

Posted by
4637 posts

Civita and Todi are on different sides from Orvieto but still doable if you have a car.

Posted by
5697 posts

@ilja, maybe we'll see you there! Will have a car May 17-23 (pick up in Florence, stay outside Siena and then outside Orvieto) but aside from having a Michelin map and sleeping reservations, no specific plans yet.

Posted by
4637 posts

Laura, it's possible. We will arrive to Florence May 22, stay till May 27th, then drive to our villa which is between Orvieto and Civita, on June 3rd drive to Rome and fly to Prague. (We already visited Rome few times).

Posted by
5 posts

Thanks for the tips! After more research, I think we'll plan to drive from Florence on SR2 and visit Siena on our way to Orvieto. If time permits, maybe we'll stop at Montepulciano as well. Open to other ideas folks may have on good stops to consider for this portion. Thx!

Posted by
8072 posts

You might want to use the Search box on the desktop version of this site to read past discussions of Siena, Orvieto, and other towns. I think the main issue is that parking is very difficult outside Siena, and the walk to the main sights can be long, hot, and uphill. (While Orvieto has massive parking garages, not free, they do have escalators and funiculars up to the town.) Just BTW, Siena and Orvieto are very dissimilar. You will be hard pressed to "see" Siena in less than a full day. Orvieto is so nice that you'll be glad to spend time there. Tuscany is extremely busy in July and August, absolutely jammed.

I presume you have already read about general car rental advice, insurance issues, ZTL, IDP, and so on. If you put your home city and country in your profile, we might be able to offer better comparisons and advice.