Driving from Venice to Pisa

Most rental car companies (Avis, Hertz, Maggiore) are located around Piazzale Roma in Venice. From there, once they give you your car it's an easy way out. Once on the Ponte della Liberta' (bridge) you go straight to the Freeway A57. The driving times you have are conservative. Venice-Pisa: Unless you run into some accident induced traffic you can make it in 3 hours. Just step on that pedal, you are not in America. The speed limit on the freeway is 130 km/h (almost 85 mph). Pisa-Volterra: over one hour. Volterra-Paciano: 2 hours should be enough. When you arrive at Bettolle, take the Valdichiana freeway entrance to the A1 South (Rome direction) then exit at Chiusi/Chianciano T. Exit. Exit the freeway then follow directions to Chiusi, then to Chiusi Scalo, then to Perugia. Shortly after you'll see the right turn off to Paciano. Not sure if you are going just to Pisa and Volterra, or also Lucca. That's a lot to see in a day. If you include Lucca I would do the following: day 1: Morning Drive Venice to Lucca (even less than 3 hours): visit Lucca in the PM, stay overnight around the area (Lucca/Pisa or in between doesn't matter, Lucca and Pisa are 20 min. apart).
day 2: Morning visit of the leaning tower and Duomo (2 hours max) in Pisa. Proceed to Volterra before noon, visit Volterra in the PM. At this point you could stay another night around there, either drive back to the hotel where you stayed before (around Lucca/Pisa) or at a new one in Volterra. You could also drive to Paciano late in the evening after seeing Volterra, but i don't know if you feel comfortable finding the villa in the boonies in the dark.

First, unless your children want to climb the leaning tower, it doesn't take long to see it. I can certainly understand wanting to see it. It's in their school books. It was in mine. But, 45 minutes later and you've seen it and taken lots of pictures. If you are climbing the tower, you could be there 3-4 hours and possibly with lunch. There is a large parking lot nearby the tower. You can rent cars at or near the Piazzale Roma. Hertz, Avis and Europcar are there. You can expect 4.0+hr to drive to Pisa. It depends on stops for food and toilets. The trip is about 330km (205 miles). Expect toll roads and speed zones with cameras. You will most likely route via Bologna and Florence. If you leave early from Venice, you could be in Pisa by noon. If your visit to Pisa is short, you can be in the Volterra area for dinner and the night. If it's longer, I would suggest spending the night in nearby Lucca. From Pisa/Lucca to Volterra, it's a 90-minute drive again with speed zones. It's only about 50 miles but you need to take your time. You could be in Voltera for a nice dinner and the night. In the morning, see Voltera and possibly nearby San Gimignano as you head for Paciano (which is actually in Umbria).

Just be careful leaving Venice. They have radar/cameras looking for speeders on the causeway over to the mainland. (Hertz billed me later.) Then you'll be okay. Leaving the Venice area, there are very good controlled access 4 lanes, and it's flat as Arkansas.

We spent a week outside of Cortona in 2011. Suggest that when you go into Florence you catch the train for a day drip, not drive. Sienna, Montalcino were easy day trips by car.
Another suggestion is to take a train from Venice to Pisa, and rent the car there, then drop the car from whereever you fly out of.

Thanks so much for the advice. So, it seems that the route driving Venice Lucca/Pisa and then onto Volterra and Umbria is a reasonable option. If I could request opinions on two other details: - Is it worth taking a day off Venice (we would have 2 full days instead of 3) to see Lucca, Pisa, Volterra and probably San Gimignano. Or would our time be better served with a 3rd day in Venice and skipping these four towns. We do not have an option of extending this part of the trip as our reservation for the villa starts on Saturday, June 22nd. - If we do leave Venice a day early for this road trip, would you suggest staying overnight in Lucca or Volterra. Again I have 4 teenagers. I am torn between having a more relaxing time in Venice and taking the opportunity to see a few other highlights. Once we are at our villa we will be there for a week, Sorrento for a week and Rome for 4 nights so we are not doing a lot of moving around. Thank you. Lisa

Lisa, I'd not take a day out of 3 in Venezia to visit those 4 cities. However, if you are going to do it, Lucca is a better overnight stay. Driving there is easy, mostly divide highways with controlled access and perfect pavement.