My parent's and I decided to skip the Cinque Terre and add two more says for the hill towns. How many do you think we could see in 7 full days and which ones are the best? Thanks!
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16231 posts
With a car or without a car? With a car, assuming 10 min for parking time in each town, and an average 1 hour in each (longer in bigger towns like Siena but only 10 min. for small villages) you could probably pack up to 30-35 in a week, including travel time to each. I'm not saying you are going to enjoy the trip, but that will give you the upper limit. There are 287 Comuni (communes) in Tuscany each with dozens of Frazioni (villages). In total there are 5,593 cities, towns and villages in Tuscany, so you don't have enough time for all. Each person has its favorites. Rather than a list of what I think are prettier, I will simply give you a website that will give you any information you need to know about the most beautiful ones in Tuscany. http://www.borghiditoscana.net/ Here are the top 10 in Umbria: http://www.10cose.it/umbria/cosa-vedere-umbria.html
Posted by
Huntsville, AL, USA
8371 posts
Siena, San Gimignano, Certaldo, Volterra, Orvieto are my favorites. Southwest of Orvieto is Bagnoregio and the incredible Civita that you must walk into.
There again, they're the only ones I've been to. There are many more hill towns south of Florence. I suggest you get on GoogleMaps.com or Mapquest.com and see what towns are out there. Then, look them up on Wikipedia to see which towns are of interest to you. Another popular town is Montalcino, famous for the incredible Brunello wines. A good travel book like Rick Steves' Italy can guide you. See your local library for books on Tuscany. You could see two a day on a leisurely pace, or maybe more if they were close together.