We are four adults traveling Italy. Most of our travel from city to city will be by train. However, we have one stretch we are questioning. From Florence, we are moving on to Chianti for two days. From there to the Cinque Terre...Anyway, we will want to explore the towns in Chianti and on the way to La Spezia and Vernazza. Should we rent a car? Hire Drivers for short day trips? (we have not been successful getting anyone online yet) Should we pick up a car in Florence, keep it for the three days and drop it off in La Spezia? Obviously, we are in a quandry, and any help would be appreciated!
Where in Chianti are you planning on staying? If it were me I would probably stay in Siena for two nights and use that as a home base and either rent a car to explore the region or take a bus tour. CT is an easy train ride from Siena.
We are staying in the hills about 17 miles south of Florence and have already booked our stay there.
We found the Pisa airport rental car drop off a good place to drop our car on the way to Cinque Terre. There is a shuttle from there to the airport rail station, but it was faster and very inexpensive to have a taxi take us to the main Pisa rail station. When you start looking for cars, you'll see that the La Spezia rental offices (there ar least 2) have limited hours; they are closed for several hours at mid-day. The Pisa airport location has good hours.