One afternoon in Tuscany

Your original post said: "I'm thinking it would be best to do this on our last day (on route to Cinque Terre) we could leave in the morning, bus to a town(s), and continue on to Cinque Terre in the early evening."

I was wondering, what is your tentative thinking on what you will do with your luggage, when you get off the bus in a town you want to explore, before continuing on (by bus?) to the CT?

Kent - I didn't think of storage until after I reread my post, honestly. I think I assumed that there would be lockers. We're each going to have one backpack (that's it) so if we do not have lockers - it's going with us I suppose.

If you're heading from Florence to the Cinque Terre, one town you can stop in would be Lucca, which is on the way. You can store your luggage, and, amongst other things, go biking around the town, as you mentioned (which is really fun)! There, you'd get the best of both worlds. Cortona is great, but if you're going to Cinque Terre on the same day, that would be a lot of back-tracking...

Lockers are being/have been phased out in Europe, as they have been here, because of the threat that bombs could be put in them (I suppose that's the reason). There are websites where you can check to see if train stations have storage facilities for luggage, usually called left luggage facilities. Your challenge will be to see if there are websites that state whether particular bus stations in Italy have left luggage facilities. There's limited information available on the internet about the facilities at Italian bus stations.

"so if we do not have lockers - it's going with us I suppose."

There will be places that will not allow you in with the size of backpacks that will hold all of your stuff, either for security reasons (some museums or churches) or for the convenience of other customers (for example, some stores and restaurants).

Some of these places will probably have places for you to check your large backpacks, others (some restaurants and stores) probably will not. You'll want to plan with these constraints or limiting conditions in mind.

Or, you may decide to change your plans and rent a car to see some of the Tuscany countryside (that's what many travelers here do) or sign up for a day tour going into the Tuscany countryside from Florence.