Please critique our itinerary. Suggestions/recommendations?

This is an answer to your question in the last sentence of your 1st paragraph: To figure this out, go here clickand enter Vernazza in From and Pisa Aeroporto in To. Enter your travel date and set the time to 0500; and click Search. When the schedule comes up, you'll need to make a judgment call about how much you want to push your luck re missing your plane to get the extra night sleeping in Vernazza rather than Pisa. You've been to Italy before so you know the drill: it's Italy and things don't always work out, schedule-wise, the way you expect.

I agree with Kent about going to Pisa the night before your flight home. Last Sept in Italy I was on a train that ran 1 1/2 hours late and on another train from CT that had the engine break down which resulted in a whole lot of other time delays and missed train connections. You could save seeing the Leaning Tower to the end of your trip and on arrival just get your car and start driving and "heading for the hills".

Yikes Marie & Kent!
Thanks for your advise. We thought we'd have plenty of time to catch a noon flight. We may need to rethink this.

When we first arrive in Italy we don't get in until about 11:00p.m. and thought that was a little late to head for the hills. That was why we where going to stay in Pisa the first night.

I would do the same thing you are doing on the first night, stay in a hotel that you know you can reach easily from the airport by taxi. You're going to be tired after your flight and the last thing you want to do is start your vacation off with a stressful midnight attempt to reach a further destination late at night with jet lag and when services' hours of operation will be limited.