Just back from Italy

Hello All
I wanted to thank everyone for great input before our trip. here is what we ended up doing! (My husband and I and two friends)
We had 3 weeks on the ground with an additional 2 travel days. I had been to Italy before but my husband had not so we hit many of the "must see" sites in Rome. I am glad that we didn't attmept Venice or Cinque Terre because it was a bit cool....
This is what our itinerary looked like:
Rome - 7 nights.
Todi -5 nights
Siena -5 nights
Florence -4 nights
First, the weather. We were in Italy from March 16-April 7. It was spring weather, always changing. We had a mix of nice warm days, cool days, windy days, one afternoon with rain-you name it. I made the mistake of deciding to leave my jacket at home...I needed it! I did have layers and so that worked out but a good, packable jacket would have been more comfortable. One day while we were in Assisi it was only 50 degrees (10 c) and very windy. It was very cold!
We stayed in apartments in all the locations and were very happy with all. I scheduled tours for the things like the Vatican and Borghese gallery, etc and they were great. 7 days in Rome seems like a lot but for us it was perfect. we had time to see all we wanted with lots of free time to just wander around. Try Roma artichokes or the Jweish style. They were both delish!
5 nights in Todi- we could have made due with 4. We did have a day trip to Assisi and another to Orvieto that helped. Todi is beautiful and uncrowded. Good food. We actually saw the waiters, etc on the street and they recognized us...There is a little pastry shop next to the church with delish pastries.
5 nights in SIena- we had a walking tour the afternoon we arrived, then the following day we went on a hike in the Chianti hills followed by a picnic in the middle of a winery! Luckily the day was warm and sunny! We also had a day trip to some of the other small towns in the area like Volters, etc. It was beautiful and relaxing. Try the Ribollita soup....we had it in several places.
4 nights Florence. We stayed in the Oltrano area and it was perfect! We were a short walk to Ponte Vecchio and so had easy access to the other side of the river with all the big galleries (Uffizi & Academia, etc) But we loved staying on the other side just to be away from all the tourists. Even though we were there before the season really started, it was very crowded. Florence is famouis for its bistecca alla Fiortina (a T-Bone) we didn't try it.
Great food, great people, beautiful place!
We used mydaytrip to get us from point A to point B. We used it before while in Portugal and it worked out well. Sharing the coast with our friends helped.
We used Through Eternity Tours in Rome & Florence and they were excellent. We had mostly private tours and a few small group, tours. I highly recomment them.
We used toursbylocals in Todi for our day trips and they were good. I think it depends on who you hire.
In Siena we used Viator-they actually hooked us up with a tour company called Tuscony Tours, they were also good. They have nice tours if you want to spend the day in Tuscony and have lunch at an organic farm, for example. We had lunch at an organic saffron & olive oil farm.
That's it for now!
Thanks
Susan