Siena, Assisi, or Volterra

You cannot combine Assisi and Volterra in one day, as each is 2 hours from Florence in opposite directions. There's plenty to do and see in both towns, so devoting a full day is not unreasonable. Another town to consider visiting is Lucca. It's not a hill town like Assisi and Volterra, but most people like it and it's only about an hour from Florence by train.

I don't have a car. I will be relying on trains/buses and hitch-hiking (just kidding).

Should I combine Siena with Volterra?

I will definitely visit Assisi for day 1. For day 2...it is open: either Volterra or Siena? I want to see different view/and be stimulated---which one (Volterra or Siena or even Lucca or SG) is different from Florence/Assisi?

Judy, my wife and I did a day trip from Florence to Assisi. It was great. We should have spent a night there but a day worked out well. Its really a beautiful hill town. The train ride takes 2.5hours from Florence. Once you get to Assisi, I suggest that you walk next door to the small store and get a roundtrip bus ticket for Line C. The bus stop is out front. Line C will take you to the top of the town. The basilica is on the lower part. I'm suggesting going to the top as Assisi is quite steep. If you go to the Basilica first, its all uphill. With the Line C bus, you start off up top and take your time coming down. Great shops. Great Gelato as well. When you get down to the lower level, you can tour the basilica. Then, you can take the bus back to the train station.

One last hint. Around 5:00pm, we were getting hungry and wanted a nice dinner. WRONG. In the small towns, the restaurants close from 4:00pm-7:00pm. We couldn't wait until 7:00pm. We had frozen lasagne heated up in a microwave in the train station. Surprisingly, it was quite good. We still laugh about that experience. You might find a small place or two open.

Haven't been to Volterra but you can't go wrong with either Siena or Assisi. They're both lovely. The main difference is that Siena feels very much like a university town (lots of international students) whereas Assisi is definitely a religious pilgrimage site.

The only catch is that the train station in both is not near the historic center. You can easily take a bus from Florence right to the historic center of Siena. Not sure if the same is true of Assisi. We took the train to "Lower Assisi" (actually Santa Maria Degli Angeli), and then took a VERY expensive cab ride up to our hotel in Assisi. There is a shuttle bus from the train station into Assisi, but it wouldn't take us near our hotel which was on the outskirts of the old town. Next time we'll stay closer to the center. (I blame the travel agent we used for some of our lodging.)