florence ticket purchase/easy side trip

I've heard of peope doing Cinque Terre as a day trip from Florence, I wouldn't personally recommend it though. I think you would want more time exploring the region. When I was in Florence a couple years ago, I believe I gave myself 4 or 5 nights in Florence and 3 nights in Cinque Terre, but could have easily spent more time in either place. From Florence, I took a day trip to Siena, which is much closer than Cinque Terre, and easily doable (though after the fact, I do wish I had more time there also). Regarding museum tickets, I would suggest contacting your hotel and asking for them to make reservations for the Academia and Uffizi. The lines can be terribly long without reservations.

Definitely purchase ahead of time! I have both times I've visited Florence and it is well worth the processing fee to have the vouchers in hand when you leave the US. I only get vouchers for the Academia and the Uffizzi Vatican Museum tickets might not be available but if you get there early in the morning it is easy to get in quickly. Go straight to the Sistine Chapel then backtrack. You will be able to see the Chapel without much of the crowd if you get there early.
I use this site for Florence and Rome. http://selectitaly.com/museums.php The Gallery Borghese is amazing, well worth the price. As Rick says, go to the top floor and see the paintings first then down to the sculpture floor. Most do the reverse and you can avoid the crowd.

In Florence, you can purchase Uffizi tickets in advance highly recommended otherwise you will wait in line for many hours. You can pick them up at the pre-booked ticket entrance, which has a much shorter line. I'd agree Siena is a great side trip and much easier to do, and you'll wish you could spend more time there. I wouldn't do CT to far, too difficult to get to & not enough time there as a day trip. San Gimignano is also a good day trip from Florence, but I'd do Siena first and then SG if you want another day somewhere else.

Also, take your camera to the Ufizzi and head up to the top floor for this view of the Arno and bridges: http://www.lodgephoto.com/galleries/italy-tuscany-florence/florences-colorful-ponte-vechio-tuscany-italy--106.html

April is a wonderful time to visit Italy. We are in Florence starting March 1st. This year will be our 3rd trip and I will help you as I can. First, do you have the RS guides for the cities you are visiting. Most of your questions will be answered although sometimes things change & all scenarios cannot be covered by any guide book. First Florence: As per RS & personal experience, The Accademia & Uffizzi - you MUST reserve ahead of time in order to not waste time in line. Many options are discussed in the guide, but my plan is to go to the Orsanmichele Church booking window and make our reservations there. But, we will be in Firenze for 11 days so we have a lot of flexibility. If you have a set agenda and only a few days, you best book asap for both of these sites. I think that the only other site that requires reservations is the Brancacci Chapel if you wish to visit... Rome: Do plan ahead for your visit to the Vatican Museums and pre-book on their website. Another long line you don't want to stand in. This is very easy and reliable, you just present your printed receipt & proceed in. We went on a Wednesday ( advised in the RS Rome guide) and practically had the place to ourselves. The other place to require reservations is the Boghese, but I was able to call in Rome & made our reservations for the day we wanted. You cannot just walk up and expect to get in without a reservation. We saw many turned away. Our 2010 two week trip to Rome saw an impact from the volcanic ash difficulty in that the place was almost empty of tourists, except us. We saw many Italian tourists though. One more thing - you may be in Italy during the National Cultural Week - Starts April 9th - and enjoy some discounts and free admission to museums!! It varies site to site. Good Luck & have a great trip!!

because we are purchasing 4 tickets to each place we want to visit, I was hoping to get assistance from our hotel to phone in our admission times. Also, we will be visiting a family friend while there and thought to ask them to schedule our time but wasn't sure if that would require them to use their credit card.

thank you. our last full day will be in Florence on the 9th, that may save us some admission fees.

You can easily do a one-day trip to the CT without a guided tour. It's always recommended to stay longer for a fuller experience but if one day is all you have, here's a suggestion on how to do it. One-Day Cinque Terre Visit
1) Depart Florence on the 7:28am train to Riomaggiore. You will arrive in Riomaggiore at 10:08am (2 train changes – Pisa and La Spezia). This particular run will cost more as the first leg to Pisa is on a Eurocity and they cost more to ride. You could go later but you wouldn't get to the CT until 1:00pm. Once in Riomaggiore, stop in the Tourist Information office in the train station and buy a 1-day Cinque Terre Treno card. This will permit unlimited train travel and access to the coastal trails. It's worth it. 2) walk down to the water's edge and look for the Via Dell'Amore coastal trail. Walk the trail to Manarola. This takes about 25 minutes and the trail is very level except for a few steps. Tour Manarola. It's now about 11:30. Take the second trail from Manarola to the Corniglia train station. This takes about 45 minutes. You don't need to tour Corniglia as its high up on a bluff. 3) From the Corniglia train station, take the local train to Vernazza. Its now about 1:00pm. Tour Vernazza. Have lunch either in Vernazza or in Monterosso. It's now about 2:00pm without lunch or 2:45pm with lunch. 4) Take the train from Vernazza to Monterosso. Tour both the old town and the new town. Its all fairly flat. Complete your touring about 4:00pm. You can then take the afternoon train from Monterosso back to Florence. Should you choose to go instead to Siena, Grayline (CAF Tours) has a bus tour from Florence to both San Gimignano and Siena. 52E. 90 minutes in San G. and about 4 hours in Siena. We've done it and it was quite nice.

thank you for your thorough directions. Do you know what the total cost of round trip train to CT would run? As we are four people the tour price was steep.

Just a quick FYI - I just checked the booking website (official) for the Uffizzi and the Accademia and the days for cultural week are not available to pre-book.... why I don't know.

We had our hotel book Academia for us.The hotel charged nothing and the reservation number they sent us cost a few euros. Well worth it to skip the lines. I understand they will do the same for Uffizzi.

diane, yes, the official website for Accademia and Ufizzi doesn't allow reservation for the culture week. I encountered the same issue when I want to book the reservation for Accademia mid April. I had to use tickitaly website to get the reservation. The ticket price is free, but I had to pay 8 euros for the reservation.

Mary, the train fares from Florence to the CT are not expensive at all. Most trains to and from the CT are Regionales and these are the most inexpensive trains in Italy. There are some runs that use IC or the occassional EuroCity train that are more expensive but if you study the www.trenitalia.com train website, you can easily pick out the Regionale train rides. The Trenitalia website doesn't show the fares for the Regionale runs but I beleive that it is about 11E or so each way. I can tell you from the website that the run with the IC train is 16.50E each way and the run with the Eurocity is 20.40E.

We did a day trip to Pisa. Left at 3 Pm and were back in Florence at 8 PM!

Thank you, we are about one month away!! All hotels are booked. I think we have decided to purchase our tickets for Rome stateside and buy our Florence tickets from our hotel in Florence. That way we have some flexability in Florence to take a side trip in the country. One week in Italy requires some thin timing so we are trying not to overbook but at the same time see it all. I see this as a good problem to have!!