Itinerary Thoughts

It’s doable
A car would be handy for San G and that town should come before Orvieto

Hello jjec,

Offhand I think it is too many places spread over too large an area.

Definitely 3 nights in Venice since one of those nights is a flight day.
Bologna for 3 nights is a good amount of time.
Spending the time to cross most of the country to spend two nights/one full day on the Ligurian coast seems like a lot of travel without a solid plan. I'd either commit to spending the time there or do something else. You could do the Ligurian coastal towns from Levanto or the south side of the La Spezia bay with a side trip to CT or commit all the time to exploring CT.

Orvieto is well past San Gimignano and getting back to it would mean travelling back to Tuscany for many hours and probably require a car. Personally I don't think SG is really interesting enough to backtrack for or to stay in. If you wanted to do 2 nights in Siena/Arezzo and 2 nights in Orvieto that would make a little more sense. But either way if you want a taste of Tuscany do this before heading to Orvieto which is well on the way to Rome.

Keep in mind that 2 nights is only one full day in a place and personally I don't ever advocate staying somewhere for one night until it is for transportation or logistical reasons.

Just my thoughts, hope that helps. Have a great trip,
=Tod

Hi,

Orvieto is just an hour and 15 minutes from Rome by train, so I would save that for your next to last location. Any reason why you want three nights there? You could pick a slightly more convenient location in Tuscany and give it two & Orvieto two and skip the car. Or take the third night away from Venice since you have been there and give it to the Tuscany location.

2-Venice
3-Bologna
2-Cinque Terre
2-Tuscany
3-Orvieto
2-Rome

Jean

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I did realize that San G is before Orvieto, need to work out the logistics on that one.

Work in progress….

There is a train station now labelled SG but it is still just the town Poggibonsi with a new name. There is supposed to be a bus shuttle service to SG from the train station but the travel logistics of rural Tuscany remain difficult.

The mechanics of CT to SG would probably be CT > La Spezia > Pisa > Empoli > Poggibonsi/SG by train and then finish the route by bus.
SG to Orvieto is probably bus to Poggibonsi/SG and then train to Florence > Orvieto. I would expect each of these legs to be at least 4+ hours and realistically more like 6 hours.

You could rent a car in La Spezia and drive to SG and the return it to Chuisi and train to Orvieto. Or is you can rent from Hertz you might be able to return to Orvieto and I believe only Hertz rents out of Orvieto these days. If you are committing to the cost of car rental and drop off charges I would make this a more determined tour of northern Tuscany by car and concentrate on that.

Hope that helps, happy planning,
=Tod