We will be staying in Florence in October. We would like to visit Lucca and another location for a day trip. Hopefully the weather will be nice.
Any suggestions on day trips and tour companies that have small groups?
Thank You
Maria
Posted by
North Carolina
2454 posts
Lucca is easy to reach by train from Florence. Once there, you could take a guided tour if you wish - luccatours.com gets excellent reviews, and I’m sure there are others.
Posted by
San Diego, California, USA
809 posts
We were just in Lucca a took a tour with Gabriele via RS recommended turislucca and really enjoyed it.
https://www.turislucca.com/
They offer day trips and excursion style tours but Florence to Lucca is easy on the train so I would just go by train and then arrange a couple hour walking or food tour or whatever fits your style if you want one.
Other day trips from Florence are Bologna - 40 minutes in the fast train 1.5 hours on the slow one - definitely think about a food tour there since it IS the food capital of Italy.
Siena is THE obvious day trip from Florence but also maybe Arezzo if you've done Siena.
If you are really intimidated by noisy, bustling train stations - Florence definitely qualifies - it may be worth looking for someone to arrange it for you. But it really is pretty easy once you get the hang of it and I'd encourage you to try it out.
Check out the Trenitalia website - https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html
Rome2Rio is good starting point for noodling but don't trust it until you verify with the actual companies.
If you do phone apps Trenitalia's app is pretty good and you can book tickets on the fly so if the train is in the station you can get tickets without bothering with lines and just get onboard. It also allows you to track trains for lateness, which platform they are leaving from etc.
Have a great trip,
=Tod