Stay in Orvieto and take day trips

I think you will spend a lot of time in transit if you stay in Orvieto the whole time and take day trips. Plus, I wonder if you'd enjoy getting more of a flavor of other places. I enjoyed Orvieto, but not necessarily long enough to stay 3 weeks.

I think you should actually look at train schedules to and from Rome, for example, and see how much time that would really leave you to enjoy it.

Yes, that's definitely a reasonable plan. The one change I'd suggest is to spend a few days in Rome at the end of the trip rather than doing a day trip, but only if you're flying home from Rome and haven't visited before. If you're concerned that some of your day trips by car might be too long, you could always spend a few days in a town central to those longer day trips. You have lots of options with 3 weeks. I stayed in Orvieto in May and really enjoyed it. Suspect you'll really enjoy your stay, too.

You don't say if this is your first time in Italy. If it is, my own preference would be to see more of the country than you'll be able to.

I would LOVE to stay in Orvieto for three weeks! You will have a lot of villages and countryside to explore. We picked a different road each day and just drove it to see what we found. But we only had 3 days!!!

Enjoy - and Safe Travels!

I adored Orvieto and could easily spend 3 weeks there. Whether or not you want to depends on what kind of trip you want & how much you actually want to see. If you mostly want to stay in one area and really spend a lot of time there, then go for it. If you're interested in going around touring a bunch of towns and seeing the sights, you'll be better off picking up and moving to at least one or two other locations.

The suggestion to spend 3-4 days in Rome at the end is a good one. There's tons of little tons in driving distance from Orvieto. We spent 2 weeks about 30 minutes south of Orvieto and did a lot of driving to little towns. I'm still in the processing of putting together a travel blog and I'm at the point where I just arrived in Soriano nel Cimino(the town we stayed in). Here's the blog address if you want to check in on it from time to time: http://kaybobdoitaly-2010.blogspot.com/ I have some postings from Florence but we stayed there for two nights. We day tripped into Rome from the Orte station (just south of Orvieto). Trip was easy - about an hour. We got a little tired of taking the train in but the housing situation made it affordable.

Use Siena as another base. All the villages in Tuscany are unique from one another. With Siena as another base Pienza, San Gimi..,Montepulciano, Cortona, Montalcino plus oters are easy to reach for a day. For Umbria consider using Assisi as a base-delightful. You acnnot go wrong whjich ever you choose.

We just got back, and although we loved Orvieto, I would not stay there for three weeks. We thought that 5 days was more than enough. If you wanted to use it to train to Siena and Florence (a 2 hr trip!), then you could stay longer, but I would not reccomend spending 4 hours of each day traveling.

Instead, spend 5 days in an Agritourisimo in the Siena/Florence area, and do day trips to Chianti and all of the surrounding towns. By all means rent a car and explore the surrounding towns. You do not want to drive into Florence or Siena, so taking the bus or train to either of these towns will be a good idea. You can park your car, and do that from many of the surrounding towns.

And spend at least at 5 days based in Rome.

I like Steve's idea to stay in an agriturismo outside of Siena. I think it will be easier to drive to/from an agriturismo than to/from Orvieto every day. I think Siena is more central to many of the other hill towns than Orvieto would be. I also loved Siena but can't see staying there 3 weeks. Perhaps you could spend 1 week in Orvieto & then another week in an agriturismo near Siena & then another week somewhere else. The agriturismo experience is very unique. We stayed at a wonderful agriturismo last September for a few days & we REALLY enjoyed it. We had a rental car & drove to different hill towns every day.

I also agree with the others regarding spending more time in Rome. Unless you've been to Rome before, one day is definitely not enough. It takes 90 min by train to get to Rome from Orvieto so you'll spend 3 hrs round trip on the train & maybe have 4 or 5 hours in Rome. There's so much to do in Rome & I suggest spending at least 3-4 days there, perhaps at the end of your trip if you're flying out of Rome. So, I'd suggest staying in Orvieto for a week, at an agriturismo near Siena for a week & then maybe Rome for a week. There are also some great day trips from Rome such as Ostia Antica, Hadrian's Villa, etc. Have a great trip.

Thank you all for your suggestions and comments! We have changed our plans as a result and will spend the first 3 days in Rome, then a week in Orvieto (plan to travel around to see the Umbrian hill-towns), 3 days in Cinque Terre, 4 days in Florence (hope to see surrounding towns) and then back to Rome for the last day.

In addition to the train, there is good public bus service from Orvieto to many towns in the general vicinity, which would cut down the number of days for which you would want/need to rent a car. Look at how many towns can be reached by bus:

www.atcterni.it

http://www.atcterni.it/est010/extra%20orvieto.pdf

NOTE that many buses leave and arrive BOTH at the Orvieto train station AND at Piazza Cahen in the old town (near the funicular to the train station).