Florence in two separate days

Go directly from Rome to Florence.
2 nites Florence.

Florence to Riomaggori.
3 nights Riomaggori. For a first trip this is plenty of time.

Riomaggori to Rome.
3 nights Rome.

Fly home.

Thanks Gerri but our accommodations are already booked for Tuesday night - Saturday morning in Rome and Saturday night to Thursday morning in Riomaggiore. We leave Italy on Friday morning so will be traveling back from CT by way of Florence on Thursday and will spend the day in Florence and take the train to Rome that evening. We plan to fit as much into our one day in Florence as possible. However, since we need to go from Rome to CT on Saturday, I was thinking it might be worth stopping in Florence for half a day since many trains will take us that way anyway.

Can anyone else comment on my plan in the original post?

I should also mention that we are spending so much time in CT because we love to hike and this is our honeymoon.

Sounds like a great honeymoon! Congratulations!

You should definitely plan to do the Duomo climb first thing, as Rick suggests in his guidebook, since it's a single-file climb and you don't want to be behind a long line of people. So it makes sense to do that Thursday morning. It opens at 8:30, so get in line a little after 8:00 and you should be fine.

It sounds like you're traveling from CT to Florence on Thursday morning. You really plan to get to Florence by 8:00?

I think it makes sense to do the Accademia and Uffizi on Saturday, with reservations. Personally, I wouldn't rush to leave Florence early just in order to stop in Pisa and see the tower. There's too much to see in Florence. I would spend as much of the day as possible in Florence before departing for CT, and if there were time to stop somewhere on the way from Florence to CT, I would make it Lucca, not Pisa.

Enjoy your trip!

Thanks Lane. Glad to get confirmation that it makes sense to do the Duomo climb on Thursday and the museums on Saturday with reservations.

We are hoping to get to Florence around 8 am on Thursday. It does seem ambitious, but this is why I was asking about trains in another post on this forum. It seems like there will be a train from La Spezia to Firenze that will get in a little after 8 am. We'll have to leave Riomaggiore around 5 am but, after relaxing for the past four days I'm hoping we can do it. If not, at least we will have already seen the Accademia and Uffizi gallery the Saturday before.

I don't care much about the tower either - from what I heard, there isn't much to see. My fiancé is interested in seeing it though, so I want to do it for him!

Lane, what do you recommend doing in Lucca? Maybe I can convince my fiancé!

if You like to hike, it's a pitty not to hike in Tuscany (Fiesole on the top of Florence, or the Chianti region)
I think if you could half your time between Chianti region and the Cinque Terre it would be more diverse and nicer.
It's not because you are booked that you cannot change your plans. Just call them and include Greve in Chianti (easily accessible by bus from Florence), Montepulciano

I have been considering cutting my time in CT down to spend more time elsewhere (more time in Florence or wine tasting somewhere in Tuscany are at the top of the list), but I also know myself and have made too many trips where I never stopped moving and was exhausted by the time I got home. I don't want that to happen on my honeymoon. Ten nights and three different places to stay already seems like a lot to me.

I think Lane is right regarding your stop in Pisa.
It makes more sense to spend more time in Florence than going to Pisa this time. Also there are so many things to do in Italy that you will have to come back.

If you exhaust the top hiking possibilities before ending your stay in the Cinque Terre (or if you are unlucky with the weather) and are interested in a day-trip, Pisa is just a bit more than 90 minutes away by train, and Lucca (beautiful walled historic district) a little over 2 hours away. Both routes go through Viareggio, so you could combine the two stops into a single day-trip. You'd want more time in Lucca than in Pisa.

If you want to see the Belltower in Oisa, do it. If you can stop in Lucca, it can be a beautiful half-day (rent bikes, or walk, the walls). The two cities are well-connected and close to each other.

I didn't mean to suggest stopping in Lucca on the way from Florence to CT. As I said, you should maximize your time in Florence. I only meant to suggest that I'd pick Lucca over Pisa if I didn't have time for both.

The suggestion by acraven is a better one: since you have loads of time in CT, make Pisa and Lucca a day trip from there. Lucca is just a great place to walk around and (as a few folks have mentioned) rent bikes and circle the town on the top of the wall. Check out what Rick says about Lucca.