Siena Hotel or Apartment Sept. 26-29

You can easily take a bus from Siena to Pienza to Montepulciano. Also Siena to San Gimignano. for the rest consider renting a car in Siena upon your departure. Avis has an agency which I used. Driving is not a prob in Tuscany. Parking can be challenging to find so get a small car.

CAT, if you're traveling with a car and want to stay inside the city, you have a problem. Driving into old-town Siena is horrible. I've done it. I would never do it again.

Streets the width of your car and no more, completely full of people who can't believe someone actually drove a car into this pedestrian paradise. Huge fines, later by mail, if the traffic cameras photograph your car entering this zone and your hotel forgot to notify the police, or the police lost the notification.

The hotel has no parking. There's no such thing as on-street parking inside the old city walls. Your only choice is to park outside the city, hike or taxi to your hotel, and pray the car is still there when you return.

Then there's the hard trip out to/back from the car each time you want to take a daytrip somewhere. Horrible.

So the advice: do not stay inside the old walls if you have a car. Find a place at the edge that has free, easy parking. Walk or take a taxi to go into Siena central when you want to go there. Then you have an easy drive anytime you want to take the car out of town.

Thank you for information about cars inside the city of Siena. VERY much appreciated

We've been to Siena twice and have stayed right outside the Porta Roma at Hotel Santa Caterina. Lovely hotel, good breakfast and they have a parking area behind the hotel. It was very convenient to get on the road every morning for our travels and about a 10 minute walk to the Campo. And no driving inside the city walls.

CAT,

If you'll be renting a Car in Italy, one thing to note is that EACH driver must have an International Driver's Permit. This is compulsory and must be used in conjunction with your home driver's license. Should you be stopped, you can be fined on the spot for failing to produce an I.D.P.

Also, it would be a good idea to get the full C.D.W.

Cheers!

We're staying at Hotel Athena. Good reviews.
Its near the Porta San Marco so it has easy access to the main roads.
Has Private parking.

Hotel Athena.

The page that comes up has my dates. You'll have to input your own.

Last summer we stayed at Hotel Villa Elda in Siena. There was always on-street parking available in that neighborhood, which is about a 10-minute walk from the center of town. We rented a car for 3 days and had no problems -- it wasn't very hard to figure out where we shouldn't be driving. (Don't venture onto any one-lane roads and you'll probably be fine). We visited most of the towns you mentioned. We brought our own GPS with European map data and followed its directions to get around. Driving thru Tuscany was a definite highlight of our trip.

I will note that our rental car place was a fair distance from the hotel, so we ended up having to take a taxi just to get there (and another taxi after we returned the car). But Villa Elda was a wonderful hotel, and we'd definitely stay there again.

We also stayed at the Santa Caterina and found it very nice. We had a great view and the breakfast ais good. And no need to drive inside the city walls! They had a nice terrace overlooking the countryside where you can gather in the evening.