Hi. My family and I will be travelling in Tuscany next June for around 10 days. (around 5-15th June) We will be coming from Naples so I was originally thinking of high speed train to Florence then car hire and return to Florence before train to Venice. But everytime I look on the internet I find another part of Tuscany that I can not go without visiting. As we will hopefully go as far south as Saturnia and north to Levanto (was thinking of staying there and day trips along Cinque Terre - my kids love beaches) was considering hiring car out of Rome and driving north through saturnia (thermal springs, not sure whether to go coast road or inland through Monterosi, Viterbo, etc- thoughts on better route??) to the coast (for kids to have day at beach), San Gimignano (day trips to Siena, Volterra, whatever else i discover by then), florence, Lucca (day trip to Pisa), Levanto (day trip or two along Cinque Terre) and dropping car off elsewhere - either backtrack to Florence to get high speed train to Venice or is there anywhere more convenient to Levanto that would have hire care drop offs and reasonable transport options to Venice. My main concern is accommodation. As I said I keep finding more must do places so would like to keep some flexibility. Will accommodation book up for that period. Its a balance between wanting flexibility and not wanting to spend half of each day working out accommodation. Any thoughts or advice?
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16611 posts
How many nights in Italy total?
How many NIGHTS you would like to allocate to each of the following locations:
Naples area
Rome
Cinque Terre
Tuscany (incl. Florence)
Venice
You can't possibly do all of the above in 10 days, so I like to presume that your entire Italy's trip is much longer than that.
The most logical itinerary is:
NAPLES > train > ROME > train > CINQUE TERRE > car (rent in La Spezia and drive to Tuscany) > TUSCANY > return car in Florence > FLORENCE > train > VENICE.
Posted by
OP
206 posts
Hi. The 10 /11 days is for Tuscany we will have 10 days in Rome/Naples before that and a few days in Venice after.
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16611 posts
Then still follow my itinerary.
You could also go to Levanto by car, if you decide to rent in Rome (or Naples or Sorrento) instead that after the Cinque Terre at nearby La Spezia. Actually if you are departing from Sorrento, I would rent from Sorrento, so you avoid all the various train transfers.
If you want to stop along the way in Maremma on the coastal route on the way from Rome to Levanto, besides Saturnia, you may want to consider the village of Capalbio and also the Mt. Argentario Peninsula (Porto Santo Stefano). Nice beaches all around. From Porto S. Stefano you can also ferry across to the Giglio island (make sure that Capt. Schettino of the Costa Concordia is not at the helm).
In Levanto, you won't need the car, since the train to the Cinque Terre is more convenient. But at leasat you can easily park it in Levanto. Levanto is more car friendly than the Cinque Terre. Then when you are done visiting the 5 terre, just drive from Levanto to Tuscany and proceed as described above in the previous post.
Don't stay in Florence with the car. Stay outside of the city or anywhere in Tuscany. if you want to stay in Florence a couple of nights before heading to Venice by train, make sure you return the car as soon as you drive into Florence. Then from the rental car drop off, take a taxi to a hotel in the city center. Florence is largely restricted to non residents' motor vehicle traffic.