We would like to travel to Florence (or somewhere in Tuscany region) from Rome. Spending 3 days in the area. We are considering the following but don't know which would be best ...
* Rent car and drive to Florence, making stops along the drive in Sienna and Montepulciano. Stay 3 nights in Florence. Drop car in Florence and use train for 3 days.
* train directly to Florence and stay there as home base for 3 nights. Visit other areas in 3 days that we are there
* Hire private transportation to Florence with stops along the way and stay in Florence
* Stay in Sienna and travel to other areas in the 3 days we are there. Rental car to Sienna
Any and all recommendations are appreciated! This is my first visit to Italy and just not sure best way to visit Tuscany region. There will be 4 of us.
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32201 posts
My suggestion would be to travel via high speed train from Rome to Florence, which is only a 90 minute trip. You can then use Florence as a "home base" for visiting any other locations you might want to see (although with only three days, you won't have time to see much). Note that your departure station will be Roma Termini and your arrival station Firenze Santa Maria Novella (you'll need to know that when buying tickets).
From Florence you can easily visit Siena as a day trip via Bus (about 1H:15M each way), and you can easily reach Lucca or Pisa by train (about 1H each way). Be sure to spend some time in Florence also, as there's lots to see there. When using Buses, Regionale trains and other forms of public transit in Italy, you MUST validate your tickets prior to boarding on the day of travel or risk hefty fines. Tickets for the high speed trains don't have to be validated, since they're specific to only one train, date and departure time.
Thanks Priscilla - correction made
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16893 posts
Ken's recommendation is the simplest. If renting a car, my goal would be to stick exclusively to smaller towns not served by train, so not even visiting Florence during those 3 days.