Side trips from Florence and Rome in November

Day trips commonly made from Florence include Siena, most do it by bus, some by train. Also Pisa and San Gimignano. Day trips commonly made from Rome nclude Ostia Antica and Tivoli. Some do Orvieto as a day trip from Rome. And some do Pompeii from Rome as a day trip, but be aware that it's a long day. Lake Como from Florence as a day trip in November (what part of November, early or late?) is probably a marginal day trip: the combination of early sunset, 8 + hrs of total travel time when you include getting to train station, waiting, etc, and the marginal weather you often have there in November.

When I stayed in Florence, we did a side trip to San Gimignano which I would recommend, we spent about 2 hours in the town which was enough time to see the sites and have gelato. Driving from Florence to Rome, we stopped in Assisi which I would also recommend. It's a pretty big town and I could've probably spent the whole day there.

I think Como from Florence is also a stretch. The train does offer wonderful day trips that I think are often more overlooked - Prato, Pistoia, Lucca, Arezzo, Bologna, etc. All of these towns have amazing historic city centers and are super easy on the train. The two most often mentioned to visit while in Florence, San Gimignano and Siena, are awesome no doubt and recommended too, but are better by bus - Siena is one bus and San G. takes 2 buses if I am not mistaken.

Hi: Someone mentioned Lucca as a day trip from Florence. We are planning to do that when ywe visit Florence in March 2011. How many hours should we plan to spend in Lucca in order to see most of the highlights? We were planinng to arrive at 10:30 and leave at 6:30. Is that too much, too little, or about right? THANKS.

Hi Kathleen. I took a daytrip to Lucca from Florence. I don't remember exactly how long we stayed, but we had lunch, took a tour of Puccini's house, shopped a little, and walked around the town. I would say plan to spend the whole day there, but if you get tired at 3:00 and want to get on the train back to Florence, don't feel like you have to stay. We also took a daytrip to Pisa, which was all right. It's cool to see the Leaning Tower and the church, but really that's all to do there. Another thing we did was kind of a 2-day "trip" from Florence - we went to Bologna, stayed overnight there, and the next day went to Ravenna. I wasn't crazy about Bologna or Pisa, but I liked Lucca and loved Ravenna. Looking back on it, I would skip Bologna and spend the night in Ravenna - but then again I really like Byzantine churches. This may not be everyone's cup of tea!