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Itinerary Advice - Siena/Florence

Posted by (Connecticut, USA) on

We will be spending 10-11 days in Italy in early June, starting in Rome and ending in Venice. We have 3 days/nights mid-way through the trip for which we are trying to iron out our itinerary. We would like to visit both Siena and Florence and we are considering the following:

day 1 – arrive to Siena by train from Rome

day 2 – tour Siena (note that this will also be a Monday, when several sights in Florence are closed)

day 3 – day trip to Florence from Siena; return to Siena to spend the night

day 4 – depart Siena and travel to Venice

We realize that this is the opposite of what most people do when visiting these two cities. The upsides that we saw to this approach are: we would minimize the number of times we change hotels and we get to take in Siena for more than just a quick day trip. The downside is that we are adding some extra travel by having to back-track to Florence on day 4, in order to get to Venice. However, we thought this would not be any more time-consuming than it would be to pack and transition to different lodging, which we would need to do if we were to instead stay in Florence overnight on day 3.

I appreciate any feedback anyone has on what we are planning for this portion of our trip. Thanks so much!
~ Marjorie

Posted by
10344 posts

What transportation will you be using in which destinations on which days?

Posted by
1948 posts

I may differ from many other travelers who would strongly urge you to stay in Florence and day trip to Siena. I think staying in Siena is an excellent idea.

However, I would actually go further and suggest that you skip Florence altogether on this trip. I just don't think you can experience enough of Florence on a day trip to do more than whet your appetite for a return visit. And as long as you will be so eager to go back, you may as well just plan to make a future trip and spend several days in Florence.

Three nights in Siena would give you time for a day trip on one of those days to several of the small Tuscan hill towns.

Alternatively, if you are eager to get your appetite whetted, get an early start on day 4, stop in Florence on your way to Venice, check your bags in the train station, and spend the day there before continuing to Venice.

Posted by
10344 posts

I agree with Lane: day tripping to Florence doesn't make sense.

Posted by
542 posts

I agree that one day in Florence is not enough, and you would spend half the day traveling. (The easiest way between Siena and Florence is the bus, and it does go quite often.)

How about going to Siena for 2 days, then to Florence for 2 days? Or skipping Florence and spending time in Tuscany instead.

Posted by
5 posts

Thanks to all who have responded. I really appreciate it. To answer Kent's question, we planned to primarily be using the train for most all travel on our trip. For travel between Siena and Florence though, we thought we would use the bus as we've heard this is more efficient than the train between these two destinations. I understand that the train and bus stations in Florence are in close proximity to each other, so I'm assuming it won't be a problem if we used a combination of the two for travel from Siena to Venice (i.e. bus from Siena to Florence and train from Florence to Venice). If it is advisable though to just do the train for the Siena to Venice trip, I’d welcome your input on that as well.

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