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Itinerary Help on 9 day trip of Tuscany

Posted by on

Hello, My husband and I are going to be in the tuscany region from March 2-12. We have to be in Florence for my husband's conference from March 8- 11 and have hotel reservations in Florence for those days. We are looking to explore the Tuscan country side before that. Towns/ areas that sound interesting are Volterra, Lucca, Chianti, Pienza, Montepulciano, Montelchino.
We do plan to rent a car ( reluctantly) for these few days. we are looking for itinerary suggestions for this period. We have seen Sienna, San Gimn, Pisa and Florence on a previous trip. So far our itinerary is as follows:

March 2: Arrive in Florence from the US in the afternoon. Rent a car and head out to the Tuscan countryside and possibly stop at a town in Chianti region? Any suggestions on the town to stay in would be welcome
March 2 night- stay in Chianti region. Any suggestions?

March 3 - explore Chianti area, possible wine tour and then leave late afternoon or evening for Montepulciano. Is that too ambitious? We are not very confident of driving and were wondering about reaching Montepulciano late evening.
March 3 evening- Possibly check into Meublè il Riccio hotel, Riccio suite. Any suggestions on hotels in town will be appreciated

March 4- stay in Montepulciano and explore surrounding areas of Val D Orcia
March 5- stay in Montepulciano and explore surrounding areas of Val D Orcia
March 6- stay in Montepulciano and explore surrounding areas

March 7 - check out and drive back to Florence. Explore areas enroute and return car at florence airport? before going into city and checking into our conference hotel

march 8- Florence
march 9 - Florence
March 10 - Florence
March 11- Florence
March 12- EARLY morning flight to the US out from Florence airport. Dreading this part as we will have to get to the airport really early I assume.

Any Hints or advice on the above itinerary above would be greatly appreciated. Our hotel bookings for Montepulciano have not been finalized yet as I am not sure if one night in the Chianti area would be sufficient. I have not planned my days in Florence yet but I will be alone for that leg as my husband will be busy at his conference.
Thank you in advance

Posted by
8413 posts

You might want to look on a map, but Chianti is just outside of Florence.
And Montepulciano is pretty far south since you wish to see Lucca. It's just off the beaten path a little.
I'd suggest you stay north and west of Siena--around San Gimignano or Certaldo--a more central location. Virtually every farm in that region have rooms and/or apartments as a secondary income source.
Time to leave is coming up fast, so you might want to get moving on finding a place to stay.

Posted by
16 posts

Thanks so much David. Yes we do realize that Chianti is just outside Florence but since our flight reaches Florence at 1.30pm, late afternoon we wanted a place close by to check into for the night and then explore the area next morning. Since we had already explored Siena and SAn Gim on a previous trip we thought we would avoid it this time. We are very keen on staying for some part of our trip in the Val D Orcia region . And you are correct that time is running out and I am starting to panic about our lack of plans :(. We have decided to skip Lucca as it seems out of the way

Posted by
121 posts

I think one night in Chianti would be enough, so long as you get an early start the morning of March 3. You could take a leisurely drive down the SS 222, and explore on your own. There's some good information on drives and attractions in the region on the Slow Travel website. Towns in the region will probably be fairly quiet in early March, so there won't be much to do on March 2 other than have dinner and go to bed, but if that's what works for you on jet lag day, you're good. I would be surprised to find wine tours available that early in the season, and in any event, one of you would have to abstain from sampling if you're driving to Montepulciano afterwards. I would want to plan to get to Montepulciano before dark on March 3. It's not a hard drive, but there are lots of opportunities to get lost, and I've been told that GPS units can be unreliable in this region. You probably know this, but Lucca is an easy train trip from Florence, so if your conference hotel is in a central location, you could take a day trip while your husband is conferencing.

Posted by
16 posts

Thanks so much Sue,
These suggestions/ tips are extremely helpfully. Yes we are planning to just check into a hotel on March 2 and retire early to just recover from jet lag and then start early enough on March 3 to explore Chianti. I agree we do need to reach Montepulciano before dark as we are not very comfortable driving in new places to begin with. I am really excited and cant wait to get to Italy.

I have one more question- looking at the map and it appears that if we are driving to montepulciano at the end of the day, it appears that we should stay near Greve and work our way south to Panzano, Radda and Castellina? . I am expecting to see at least 3 of these 4 towns and hopefully enjoy the drive through the region at an easy pace

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