Getting around Tuscany without a car

Tuscany without a car is never ideal. But that doesn't mean one can't find happiness and joy.

Four nights in Montalcino will go by very fast, especially if your goal is to relax and soak up the charms of this small Tuscan town. On a single-town-centric trip, there's absolutely no need to stress over renting a car. However, without a car, you must be prepared and happy to surrender certain freedoms.

You might get lucky and find an unbooked driver at the last minute. But how will you feel if that effort fails over and over again? You could end up with a no-extra-excursion trip. How will you feel if you are unable to see and visit other parts of Tuscany?

There's plenty of delicious wine to taste in Montalcino. I wouldn't need to leave it to find more.

If your goal is to absolutely see another city or area, however briefly, you'd be smart to book something in advance.

I have used rural buses in Italy a bit. They can be rather infrequent, so you would need to plan.
The app Rome2rio is one way to get started, plug in your departure and destination and a range of options is presented, with links to bus timetables. Maybe worth a look.

Be very, very careful about planning to leave Montalcino on a Sunday or holiday. Often there is no bus service at all on those days.

We are staying near Montalcino for four nights in July and not renting a car.

How are you getting to Montalcino and from where? Where will you be going? I'm curious how you'd get to there since there's no train service to Montalcino.

What does "near" mean? We stayed very "near" Greve at an agriturismo, but the 5 minute drive would have been probably a 45 minute walk.

Are you staying at an agriturismo? I suggest you check with your accommodations to find what transportation is available.

Carefully consider your balance between mobility, interest and budget. For us, driving through the Tuscan countryside, taking side roads and exploring were as important to our experience as the destinations we were going to. Be aware that the "worries of renting and driving a car" tend to be way overblown. Arranging other types of transportation, especially private transport, has t potential of being even more tedious.

We did take the bus from Greve to Florence, but Greve is on the main drag with frequent bus service. Buses from Monatlcino will be less frequent with fewer destination options.

Thank you for all the replies! We are basically taking car service everywhere. We start in Florence and are then taking a car down to Siena for a night, stopping at a winery and Volterra and San Gimignano. Then we will take car service from Siena to Castello di Banfi which is what I meant by "near" Montalcino. Since the place we are staying is a winery and has lots to offer we will probably spend a whole day just there. We are then planning to hire a driver to take us around the next day and then possibly the following one. Then we leave to go to the Amalfi coast, which I believe will also include a driver to get us to Rome where we can take a train to Naples. It is much more expensive than renting a car, but we would like to relax and enjoy food and wine and not worry about driving. I think I will try to find a group tour for the third day we are in Tuscany to save a bit on the cost. Any recommendations are helpful - I was a bit worried about not planning all of this ahead of time and through a travel company since we are going in July, but I think the concierges at our hotels can help set up before we arrive. I also found a lot of good tour guide recommendations on this site and in the book. Thanks again - I'm very excited!

Since money is not a concern for you, if you can afford private drivers to go everywhere, I recommend a private jet from Siena Ampugnano Airport to Salerno/Amalfi Coast Airport. It’s kind of far to drive.

private jet is out of our price range, but thank you for the suggestion. splurging on a car and driver each day is already a lot for us, but i don't see any other option if we want to drink wine and chill. would you recommend taking a car from montalcino to florence and taking the train from florence to naples rather than driving to rome? i figured if we drove to rome we could stop in orvieto. i don't see any other options to getting to amalfi though.

Definitely an expensive way to visit the area.
You are doing the responsible thing though in terms of not wanting to drink and drive so respect you for that.

For most, if you don't wish to rent a car it is best to stay in the larger towns/cities of Tuscany: Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca and then add a day trip tour or two to see some of the smaller towns ; there are many providers.
Staying in one of the smaller towns or on a remote farm outside of any towns is tough without a car.
Rental cars work best for these smaller towns, exploring the countryside and farm stays.

For your Montalcino to Amalfi Coast trip.
If you want to stop in Orvieto ; why not have a driver take you there and end your trip with the driver there.
From Orvieto you can catch a train to Rome and then onto Naples and Sorrento.
No sense in paying a driver to sit why you site see in Orvieto.

You can get to Orvieto easily by train from the Chiusi-Chianciano Terme rail station, then later go on to Naples by train. However, that will mean taking regional trains Chiusi-Orvieto and Orvieto-Rome, because the fast Frecce trains do not serve Orvieto. Orvieto's not all that far from Chiusi, so a compromise might be to use a driver just to get you as far as Orvieto. It's probably about 250 miles from Montalcino all the way to Naples. I don't know what that will cost (you'll pay for the round-trip mileage), but it will be painful.

Are you spending the night in Orvieto? If so, you're good from there with a regional train on to Rome and then a fast train to Naples. If you've just got a daytime stop planned in Orvieto (it's worth an overnight), you'll have the issue of what to do with your luggage. I don't remember whether there's anywhere to store it in Orvieto. Perhaps someone else does.

Edited to add: I see that mreynolds and I are thinking along the same lines.

I'm very doubtful that you'll be able to arrange to join a tour when you're staying so far from the two cities from which most tours originate: Florence and Siena. Might you consider spending fewer nights at Montalcino so you don't have so many days with difficult and very costly transportation challenges?

we weren't planning to stay overnight in orvieto - i just thought it was a good place to stop if we were going to do the road trip to rome. i would like to see it, but the main goal that day is to get down to amalfi. i would prefer to forgo a $1000 car trip if possible. does anyone have an idea what it would cost me to get a car from our spot near montalcino to the florence train station? that's a shorter drive.

acraven - that is a good point and also a great idea. i will consider that, thank you!

If trying to get south it makes no sense to go 2 hours north back to Florence.

i didn't think so either but i had American Express working on an itinerary for me and that's what they scheduled. a car back up to florence and then a train from florence to naples. when i looked myself i thought it seemed more logical to just go south to the nearest high speed train and just take that... thank you for confirming my view!

I can understand wanting to use a driver for the day you intend to drink.
That shouldn’t cost more than 150€ for half day tour (4 hours).
But are you going to drink every single day at wineries?
If you have a rental car, on the days that you don’t go wine tasting you will save a lot by using your rental car. You will also have a lot of flexibility. You can drive in and out of your accommodations when you like without having to rely on someone to pick you up. That is especially important if you have rural accommodations in an Agriturismo or country villa, which are often isolated and near nothing within walking distance.
Also, with a rental car, the day you go to Amalfi (I presume you don’t intend to drink alcohol on that trip) you can simply drive your own car for the 5 or 6 hours from Tuscany to Amalfi. A private driver will likely want several hundred euro for a whole day trip. You can rent a car for 3 weeks with the cost of that transfer alone.

The difficulty with fast trains is that one of the reasons they are so fast is that they make very few stops. They are just grand if you are traveling between places like Venice, Milan, Florence and Rome. Otherwise, you may spend an awful lot of time on a regional train getting to the nearest place you can pick up a Freccia. And then you may wait quite a long time for the connection. And you'll potentially pay quite a lot for the privilege, because you have chosen to set foot on a Freccia.

I spot-checked several Frecce with early-morning departures from Florence heading to Rome. A few of them stopped in Arrezzo. The others stopped nowhere before Rome. What AmEx proposed may have been the quickest way to get to Naples, but of course it meant you couldn't stop in Orvieto.

I've never driven in Europe and am in no hurry to do so, but really it seems that in this case, it would save a great deal of money and considerable time to rent a car. It really doesn't work well at all to stay in an agriturismo without a car.

I can’t thank you all enough for the help you’re giving me. I think I agree now that we should rent a car and drive ourselves to and from the cities and then just take cars when we want to tour wineries or are going places where it’s hard to park a car. At first it sounded a bit scary but after considering all the options it really makes the most sense budget wise and time wise. Now I have to search the threads for rental car recommendations!

And pay attention to warnings about speeding cameras (they don't give you 10 mph of grace!), bus lanes and ZTLs (in neither of which you should drive). But having the car will let you see some places that don't get big-bus tours, so it's worth needing to do some research ahead of time.

And I hope this means you get to stop in Orvieto (you could drop the car there if you happen to rent from Hertz, I think).