First time visit to Italy...

Welcome!
That’s a perfectly good plan but I think 10 days in Tuscany countryside is too much 5-6 is probably good
Maybe add in some Umbria- Assisi, Orvieto, Spello etc
And end in Rome

Rome should get at least 4 nights.
Fly home from Rome

March may be a bit too early for Cinque Terre

Also -if you can do 3 weeks -do it
Always give your trip as much time as you can
Avoid 1 and 2 night stays

Count your trip in NIGHTS not days
Something like this
Venice 3 nights
Florence 3 nights
CT 2 nights
Tuscany 5 nights
Umbria 3 nights
Rome 5 nights

I'd avoid Italy the week before and after Easter, after I learned the hard way. Easter is late March in 2024. Safe travels!

You are considering a good plan.
I would travel in May.
Re: Cinque Terre. We stayed three nights so we could hike two days and we covered all the trail from Monterosso to Riomaggiore. The five towns are very close to each other except for Corniglia which is up on a cliff. This was before they closed some trails due to damage from rains. Crowds have become a very big problem there. Consider staying north a bit in charming Santa Margherita Ligure or Camogli, and take a day trip to the CT. But, enjoy more time in this lovely area north of the CT instead.
Siena is a good base in Tuscany. Heading north along the
historic Route 222, the Chiantigiana, you will drive through the charming Chianti villages such as Radda, Castellina, Panzano, Gaiole, Greve. Stop and enjoy them. Don’t stretch yourselves too far. We have stayed in several of them. Montepulciano is wonderful too.
Save Umbria for another trip and stay in Spello then. We spent two wonderful weeks there.
When counting trip destinations, use nights not days. Like staying 3 nights in Siena, gives a more correct count than 3 days.
Give both Venice and Florence more time, they deserve it. And you will be jet lagged in Venice the first day at least as d will regret not staying there longer , You say a couple(2?) of days for Florence, add at least one more day at a minimum.
You can take a train from Venice to Florence. Pick up a rental car when leaving Florence as it is needed for touring Tuscany.
Will you be visiting Rome? Or saving it for another trip?

May instead of March would give you 2.5 extra hours of daylight and about 10 degrees F warmer.

For a first trip I like that you’ve chosen Venice, Florence and taking time to savor several of the smaller towns. It’s wonderful to have time for both!

Personally, if you’re concentrating on Tuscany villages, I would save the Umbria towns for a subsequent trip. There’s a lot to see in northern Italy, too, and in Rome.

If you reply with some activities you’re wanting to do, we can give you better advice for specific locations.

Visited Rome and Tuscany in late April of last year and the weather was perfect, mid to upper 70's during the day and mid 60's at night. April is Artichoke season, and we visited the tiny hilltop village of Chiusure near Pienza for their artichoke festival, and it was a wonderful experience! Driving in Tuscany is a joy, just be careful in larger towns for the ZTL.

I agree with previous poster that Rome is really a must.

Have a great trip!

I agree with most of the previous replies. Your plan is pretty good.

I don't have any problem with spending ten days in Tuscany. However, I'd order things a little differently if you can work out the transportation connections. I think it makes sense to visit Siena before Florence. Both were major medieval cities, but Siena suffered more from the plague and never advanced beyond its greatness in the Middle Ages. Florence evolved into a center of Renaissance culture. If you see Siena first, you'll have a great context for understanding what you see in Florence.

I also think it's incorrect to lump Siena in with all the other Tuscan hill towns. It's really on a different scale than the hill towns you mention.

And if you're not going to Rome, I would also consider ending your trip in the Cinque Terre. You're visiting a lot of places with a lot of culture. Afterwards, it'll be great to have a few days of nature, hiking, and the beach.

Here's how I'd recommend doing it:

Venice: 3 nights
Siena: 3 nights
Tuscan countryside: 4-5 nights
Florence: 3-4 nights
Cinque Terre: 3 nights

And if you have time, I'd slip in a couple of nights in Lucca between Florence and the Cinque Terre.

(BTW, I'm curious about your use of the French spelling "Cinq Terres." Are you a French speaker?)

Thank you all for your responses. And thanks for pointing out the Easter issue. That's a big heads up. We like Jeans suggestion of May and not March due to the longer days. And yes, I was born french speaking first. Those are the kind of suggestions I was hoping for. Thanks.

Neither my wife nor I have any particular interest in visiting Rome so we like the concept of revising the itinerary as Lane suggests. We are hikers and love to walk in the outdoors and had considered the Dolomites as part of the trip but my understanding is they are not open to hiking until June.

Venice: 3 nights
Siena: 3 nights
Tuscan countryside: 5 nights
Florence: 3 nights
Lucca: 1 night
Cinque Terre: 3 nights

Thank you.

Looks good!
I would give Lucca 2 nights

You will need to be in the city of your departure flight the night before so keep that in mind

That could be Milan or Florence.
Milan will have more direct flights to US/Canada
Florence has no direct flights US/Canada

Pisa is also an option-no direct flights

Where are you flying from?

Since you mentioned Talamone: You could include Maremma Park for hiking if you are staying in southern Tuscany. It abuts Talamone at its southern end. I enjoyed hiking there far more than in Cinque Terre (much less crowded).
I liked your initial plan with ten days somewhere--longer stays are a luxury, and while it need not be ten days, some long stays versus a lot of moving makes sense to me.
May is usually perfect--this year it was dreadful, but I hope that was an outlier!

Sadly this year has shown that weather is more unpredictable and unfavorable weather is likely to be more extreme - whether it's hot temps or torrential rain. To see past daily weather conditions for any month for the last 10 years, use this site with a few grains of salt.

By May some places - Venice, Florence especially - will be full of tourists. Planning on the second half of April may be better. I rented a car last year in late March for 9 days in Tuscany-Umbria. Driving was challenging because of poor roads and poor signage once I was off the highways. Parking is a challenge in hill towns, You can't drive into them, you have to park in lots below the historic center and walk up. Some hill towns don't have adequate parking for the numbers of cars that arrive, especially the most popular like San Gimignano - either get there very early or be prepared to wait a long long time for a space.

Please go for three weeks! I would also look at either the last three weeks of April or two weeks and one week in May. As for how long in each spot-preferences for what you really want to do. So as Jean suggested giving the forum some ideas of your interests will get you more replies than you know what to do with!
Enjoy planning-it can be the most fun and the most frustrating but worth it when the trip comes together.

Steve,

While I have come to appreciate small towns and sites off the main tourist track, I would say that your proposed trip looks pretty good, except that I would encourage you to spend more than three nights in Florence. Your follow-up post shows 18 nights (if I counted them correctly) and three nights in Florence really means little more than two days, there.

On our first trip to Italy, we spent about four days there and then when we crossed through Florence two more times we spent a few hours there to pick up some of what we missed. (Florence was a bit of a cross roads for us on that trip.) 12 years later, on our second trip to Italy, we spent another 2 or 3 days there to see more of what we had missed on our first trip.

It is, after all, the birthplace of the Rennaissance in many respects. There is so much great art in this chapel of this church and that chapel of that church. You will discover artists you never heard of, who taught, mentored, or blazed trails for the other artists who you know. There is the Uffizi, the Academia, the Pitti Palace (and its lovely gardens), the Signoria and the Casa Medici. Two days, plus a morning or an afternoon on either side of your three nights will not allow you the time that Firenze deserves.

BTW, if your meanderings around Tuscany lead you to Volterra, you will enjoy some different history (Etruscan) and art (making use of alabaster) than you will see in other places.

One last suggestion. My wife and I both read and enjoyed The Agony and the Ecstacy - a novel about Michelangelo's life - before we went to Italy. It gave us a great feel and context for what we would see in Florence and Rome on our first trip to Italy.

Hi All.

So we have decided upon the following itinerary, after much thought and coordinating meeting some friends in Cinque Terres;

3 1/2 Days/ 3 Nights in Venice.

3 1/2 Days/ 3 Nights in Cinque Terre.

1 1/2 Days/ 1 Night in Florence.

7 Days / 7 Nights in Tuscany / Staying in San Gimignano with a car rental. We plan on visiting Anghiari, Bagni San Filippo, Capalbrio, Chianti, Cortona, Crete Senesi, Lucca, Monteriggioni, Montepulciano, Pienza, Possibly Pisa, San Gimignano, Saturnia Hot Springs, Sienna, Val d’Orcia and Volterra.

2 1/2 Days / 3 Nights in Rome.

Thanks for all your feedback. It helped us a lot.

Sounds like a wonderful itinerary, Steve! Please come back to the travel forum afterwards and tell us which places were extra special for you!