We have 3 nights and 4 days to spend in Florence or Tuscany in April 2016. We will not have a rental car, only traveling by train. Should we stay in Florence and just do a day trip to Tuscany? Or should we stay in Tuscany?
Any lodging recommendations?
Florence is in Tuscany which is a region, not a town. We stayed in Florence.
We (husband, daughter, grand daughter and me) thoroughly enjoyed the Walkabout Florence day tour called the Best of Tuscany. It includes Siena, lunch at a Chianti vineyard, San Gimignano and Pisa.
In addition to the towns and lunch, we loved the ride through the Tuscan countryside. Go to walkaboutflorence.com for complete information.
That tour will be a full day. Spend the rest of the time exploring wonderful Florence. We were there 7 nights (6 days) and it was not enough, so you will need to do some prioritizing.
Well, first a gentle reminder that Florence is in Tuscany. To answer your question, you could either stay in Florence for the whole time and do a day trip by bus to Siena or Lucca and an organized tour of the Tuscan countryside with someone like Roberto Becci (Toursbyroberto.com,) who will take you to off-the-beaten track places. Or you could spend two days in Florence, then move to Siena for two days , but with only three nights, you might be better off staying in one place. I'm sure you will get lots of suggestions. However, you should figure out what interests you the most, then plan around that.
We stayed at Hotel Europa in Florence, a Rick Steves recommendation, and found it very central to everything. The owners were extremely warm and helpful.
I would stay in Florence if I had never been there before. I would then do a day trip into Tuscany. You have more options for day trips if you stay in Florence. There is a lot to see in Tuscany and in one day you can only do so much. Do some reading and decide where you really want to go the most. Also check train connections carefully so you don't spend all you time on the train. Everyone has their favorite towns in Tuscany, so I won't give suggestions. Do some research and you'll have a great trip! Rick's books give great train connections , etc.
As others have mentioned, Florence is in Tuscany (it's the capital). With such a short time frame, I'd suggest using Florence for a "home base" and taking day trips to other locations in Tuscany. Siena is an easy destination for a day trip, but you could also consider Lucca, Pisa or other locations. You may also enjoy taking the Bus up the hill to Fiesole for lunch, and some great views of the city.
With 3 nights you really only have 2 full days - the other 2 being part days with travel.
I would stay in Florence - doing one exhaustive day in the city, and the other day by bus or train to Siena.
Florence is all about Renaissance art and architecture. If you love it, 3 full days is barely enough there. If you don't, you can see the highlights in a day. I'd use that yardstick to decide whether to stay in Siena and day trip to Florence, or stay in Florence and day trip to Siena. My answer might change if I knew where you were arriving from and where you were going to.
There's a new thread asking for hotel recommendations in Florence. Look on the Italy forum.
There is plenty to keep you busy in Florence for a three night stay. If you want to take a day to venture out, Tours by Roberto receives raves on this board. We were in Florence in July and stayed at First of Florence. We had a spacious suite for our family of four with a nice breakfast each day. The staff is absolutely lovely! So accommodating and lovely. I would also consider staying in the Oltoarno area as that seemed to have many nice restaurants. We also really enjoyed the Marcato Centrale - had delicious lunches there every day!
If you are traveling by train, I assume you will be arriving at Santa Maria Novella station (Firenze SMN). Get a map of Florence, and find a reasonable hotel within walking distance--there are many to be had, especially in April. GREAT time to go to Italy, BTW. We were there in March of this year and stayed in an apartment on Piazza Santa Maria Novella for 5 nights. For three nights, however, a hotel is probably your best bet.
Day trips abound--to Siena, Fiesole, Lucca, even Venice if you want--but you would not be wrong in taking the entire time to explore Florence's museums, restaurants, markets, etc. There is so much to see and it's ALL within walking distance. Enjoy!
We are going in October & after much research & studying these forums - we decided to base out of Florence & do a day trip into one of the Tuscan towns (we chose Siena after watching a Rick Steves special on it from this website- you can easily do this, it's a great way to learn about the different Tuscan Towns - see the WATCH, READ, LISTEN section). Also, if you keep looking on the Italy forums, you will find easy BUS directions on how to get from Florence to Siena as a Day Trip. We also booked a WALKABOUT FLORENCE TOUR (as mentioned above) - we came close to choosing the BEST OF TUSCANY - but since we are doing a day trip to Siena, we chose THE CHIANI WINE & FOOD SAFARI. We chose to base out of Florence because our time is so short, we didn't want to spend time dealing with a car rental & traveling. Check out WALKABOUT FLORENCE on their webpage & on TripAdvisor.
Take time in Florence too.
