Pisa and Siena trip or Siena

Siena is best seen as a day trip from Florence via bus.
Other than the leaning tower and a beautiful church, Pisa is not a top tourist destination.
I would suggest touring San Gimignano and Volterra, however. They're another destination via bus or rental car.

Siena only.

Not enough time for both on the same day, given the distance between the two.

Pisa should be visited for about 10 minutes only if you happen to pass by it to go to the Cinque Terre or Lucca. I wouldn't waste my time to go out of my way just for the sake of seeing Pisa. If they decided to straighten the bell tower nobody would even bother to stop.

Agree Siena only even though we've never been to Pisa. But one question - it looks like your trip is 13 days long and you have listed 5 locations with side trips, too. Have you calculated travelling time between cities and actual time there? It seems you might be spending a lot of time on trains.

I'll also add that you are covering a lot of ground in just 2 weeks (the busiest tourist 2 weeks of the year I might add, with Easter, Liberation Day and Labor day during that time).
Sicily alone has enough stuff to keep you busy for at least 10-12 days.

Another vote for Siena. Pisa was a day trip for us from Siena and by train it took us most of the day. Siena is a beautiful town for just hanging out in the square and people watching.

thank you everyone....
Spending 2 nights in Venice, 2 nights in Cinque Terre, 2 nights in Florence, 1 night (2 days)in Sicily (my husband's family roots there)...also on the w/e when other cities are busy/closed, the 3 days Rome. Will things be closed on May 1st in Rome?
I know some sites maybe busy due to holidays, it is our 20th wedding anniversary vacation :)

Trying to figure out a way to respond to your schedule. When you say 2 nights in a location that actually means 1.5 days. When you arrive you have to get from the train station to your hotel, check in, go up to your room. That will leave you with .5 day to explore the city. For example, in Florence you say 2 nights and you want to include a day trip to Siena. That means .5 days in Florence and 1 day for a day trip. Then you leave Rome to go to Sicily? Are you flying? One night in Sicily does not equal 2 days. When you arrive in whatever town in Sicily, which may take some time depending how far it is from the airport, you will have .5 day or less. (Roberto - last year we spent 28 days in Sicily and could have stayed longer!) You are then leaving the next day. You may have some time in the morning. You don't really give us enough information to give you good advice. Are you coming home from Sicily? Is the airport or train station near the town where you're staying? What time does your flight or train leave?

Will you have a car or be using public transportation? Have you checked all your transportation times and connections. Do you have your hotels booked and do you have an idea of how long it will take you to get from the train station or airport to your hotel? We're not trying to put a damper on your trip but to help you understand how much time it actually takes to get between one place and another. You would not want to spend all the money to go to Italy only to return feeling that you were so rushed that you know more about train stations than you do about any of the places you visited.

Maybe you could give us a more detailed schedule and you might get better advice. It would then be up to you to decide to keep to your original schedule or not.

To begin with, scrap the idea to visit Pisa and Siena in the same day. You simply don't have time, and (IMO) the time would be better spent in Siena.

One other concern is the fact that you plan to visit five locations in a two-week time frame. Some questions and thoughts.....

• Does that time include your two flight days? You'll generally arrive in Europe the day after you depart and the last day will be spent on the flight home, leaving 12 days for actual touring.
• Your plans allow for only 2.4 days in each location, with no allowances for travel time between them. In some cases travel from one location to another will only take a few hours, however the trip to Sicily will likely be at least six hours (or the better part of a full day). Realistically, each change of location will take about half a day even on shorter routes, by the time you check out of one hotel, get to the station, wait, travel to the new location, get to the new hotel and check-in, etc.
• How are you planning to get around Italy?
• Have you been there before? There are a few important things to know about using public transportation in Italy.

As someone else mentioned, it would help to have a few more specifics on what you're planning.

Good luck with your planning!

Happy anniversary!

I agree, five regions in less than two weeks is too much. Check the Trenitalia site for travel times and number of connections.

If you want to go to Sicily, fly there from Rome, but try to spend several nights there (public transportation travel within Sicily takes more time than on the mainland).

I would drop Cinque Terre from this trip, add a day to Florence if you plan to do a daytrip to Siena. If it's possible to fly into Venice and out of Palermo, you will save time and backtracking (although Palermo may add a connecting flight to your schedule).

It would be difficult to combine Pisa and Siena. I'd say either spend half a day in Pisa and the other half in Lucca (25 minutes apart by train - trains are frequent) or spend a whole day in Siena. I actually just spent an entire week in Pisa as my spouse had a conference there. A week is way, way too long but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the gorgeous leaning tower at different times of the day and night (including in the moonlight --had the place all to ourselves), and especially enjoyed visiting the baptistery, cathedral, and the TRUE gem of Pisa: the camposanto right next door to the tower.

Please carefully consider how long it will take you to get from Venice to the Cinque Terre because it will eat up most of a day. I know you really want to see all of these places but you may find yourselves overbooked, exhausted and in no shape to enjoy what Italy has to offer, which is slow time. I travel to Italy every couple of years and we find that we have to schedule down time. You will find yourselves walking everywhere, and walking on the stone streets of Italian cities is more tiring than any other walking I have ever done. To my mind, two nights in Venice is not half enough (but then nothing short of a week in Venice would suit me). You will not have enough time to explore, get lost, savor the uniqueness of Venice. You will only get to say, Yes I saw St. Mark's Square, the Rialto Bridge, the Grand Canale. You will not, however, be able to say you saw, or experienced, Venice. And that goes for any place in Italy, although a couple days in the Cinque Terre are probably enough. Ok, no more soap box. I agree. Forget Pisa. The Leaning Tower, etc, looks just like the pictures, except there are thousands and thousands of people around. Siena is great but not easy to get to and from by public transport. If you have enough time in Florence, take a day trip to Siena from there, or book a day tour that also stops at some ot the other must-sees, like Castellina in Chianti and San Gimignano. But don't go to any of the tourist places on May 1! It is a holiday and places are packed.