Hello, all! I posted on another thread in this forum, and the responses I received made tons of sense. I’ve rearranged our trip based on these. In order to reduce the number of one-nighters, I’m trying to find a good base from which to day trip. Many of the places we’ll be visiting are return favorites. We will be renting a car once we are ready to head out of Florence. We want to do quick visits to:
Monteroggioni (lunch stop—can skip if necessary)
Colle Val D’Elsa (half day?)
Siena (return favorite)
Chianti region (never been)
Arezzo/Cortona (half day each)
From here, we’re headed to Spoleto. Should we use two home bases or is one sufficient?
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
15269 posts
If you stay in a central location of the Chianti area, for example in or near Castellina, you have Siena, Monteriggioni, Colle V.E., and of course the Chianti, within 30 min drive. You can set a base in that area of the Senese Chianti, and day trip to the rest. You can easily see Colle and Monteriggioni on the same day trip. Monteriggioni, in my opinion, should not be missed. You can see it in half hour, but it’s the quintessential medieval walled village. Besides who wouldn’t want to visit a village mentioned in Dante’s Inferno?
Arezzo and Cortona are not so close. From the Chianti area you need at least 1.5 hours to Arezzo, then from Arezzo to Cortona, it’s another 40 min. From Cortona back to the Chianti it’s also another 1.5 hours. That’s the driving part, to which you need to add the time to find parking in a lot, and walk to the city center. All those towns don’t allow cars in the historic city center. I think visiting both in one day is a marathon, literally an uphill marathon if you walk all the way up to the Girifalco Fortress on top of Cortona.
You could consider visiting Cortona on the way to Umbria, since it’s more or less along the way.
Posted by
11232 posts
Siena is adjacent to the Chianti region, perhaps in it. We have had many wonderful stays in Castellina, Radda and Panzano. Choose one of them as your base. The SR 222, the historic Chiantigianna connects Siena to Florence. This is where we return to over and over. Love Siena too. One thing we like about this area is that it is green rather than yellow/ brown. In all of our visits we have not visited Colle d’elsa.
Arezzo is doable from Cortona. I much prefer Cortona but Arezzo has some significant sites to see. You have to drive through the modern city to get to the historic center. We spent a week in Cortona and visited Arezzo from there.
If staying in Spoleto next, you could stop in Cortona and Arezzo en route. Or spend a night or two in Cortona.
We love Umbria and spent two fabulous weeks in charming Spello and visited a lot of the area. Never got to Spoleto though due to road construction and traffic.