Hello everyone! We would like to go on a day trip to Tuscany from Florence. We would like to rent the car to go visit a winery in the Chianti region, as well as visit Siena and possibly San Gimignano. We would also be interested in an olive oil tasting if there's something good nearby. Has someone done a similar itinerary that can help us plan our day?
Thanks!
There are many tour companies that offer this
Would be less stressful and more time efficient than renting a car for the day and no need for designated driver
A search here will bring many up
Here’s a few
Walks of Italy
Walk About Florence
Tours by Roberto
I did take a look into tours, but we usually like to travel at our pace and not be with other people. Especially on a road trip, where you have the flexibility of stopping along the road, or spend more time in one place if you like it. My husband doesn’t mind driving at all, and he seems to prefer it to organized tours. I’m just trying to figure out how to plan the day on our own.
This Rick Steves guidebook should help you plan as it covers both Florence and Tuscany: https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/florence-guidebook
I have two of his Italy guidebooks but they don't mention exactly what I'm looking for. Does this guidebook cover a self-guided day trip to Tuscany?
We have traveled to Italy before and rented, not for the day, but for a couple of days as we stayed in a B&B just outside Siena. We are leaving for Italy next week and decided this time not to drive, but still want to visit the countryside, so we are taking a private tour from Florence. Tours by Roberto (recommended by Rick Steves) and Fiorenza Bettini (also a tour guide that works with Roberto) will arrange private tours. They are a bit pricey, but on a per hour basis is a good deal for the 4 of us.
If you don’t want to take a tour and you want to drive, the RS Florence and Tuscany book has multiple drives in detail. As a note, you will not need a vehicle in Sienna. Sienna is really a full day to enjoy, so trying to hit a winery, visit Siena and go to San Gimignano is going to make this a really long day.
If you rent in Florence, then you might want to consider visiting the Verrazano Winery. It is a 30 minute drive from Florence. They have an amazing tour and an even better lunch (we were too full for dinner). If you take a tour, plan on 2-3 hours. If you are tasting, plan on 90 minutes. You can then drive from the Winery to Sienna and that is probably a full day. It is a 50 minute +/- 10-15 minutes to Siena. It is about 30 minutes to San Gimignano.
One note on Sienna, we made the mistake of driving in on market day and it took us more than 30 minutes to find parking. If you go on market day, plan accordingly.
Hope this helps.
In reference to a designated driver, italys laws are much less lenient than here.
“Italy has a strict drink-drive limit of 0.5mg of blood alcohol. This means that you cannot drink more than one glass of wine without risking going over the limit.”
As far as your route, drive Florence-San Gimignano-Siena to have dinner here in Greve in Chianti.
Hello TravelCouple,
Your post makes it sound like you're looking at doing all three of these in a day which I think is too ambitious. If these are separate trips you're planning then I would say a day for Siena and day trip to San Gimignano and winery on another day seems reasonable.
Siena is the classic day trip from Florence and is easily achievable via either bus or train. Most people opt for the bus since it drops you in town rather than at the far edge of city. Siena is city of 50K and can easily occupy and entire day of exploration all by itself before heading back to Florence on the last bus/train.
One of the reasons it is the classic day is other smaller towns - like San Gimignano - are harder to reach with public transportation. SG has no train station so at least the last part of the trip needs to be completed by car or bus, There are buses that run from Siena to SG (bus 130) but I think a day spent on the bus to Siena, a few hours there, another bus to SG and few hours there before busing back to Florence sounds like a long day of transportation with less mellow Tuscan hilltown experience than I would want.
There is a good page on the transportation options here:
https://www.discovertuscany.com/san-gimignano/how-to-reach-san-gimignano.html
Also people mention tours for wineries because they are often not served by any form of public transportation and the tolerance for drinking and driving in Europe is very, very low so driving yourself is a very bad idea. I know there are definitely winery tour options from Siena and would image from SG as well since it is very touristy.
If you're looking for the wine experience rather than the winery both towns have tasting rooms and offer multiple option for trying wines. (FYI SG specializes in a white wine from a grape called vernaccia which I really like despite being a red wine drinker.) RS lists several wine and/or food tasting options in his writings about Siena.
This is one that also offer tour options - including SG - but there are others as well: https://www.tuscanwineschool.com/savor-siena-food-wine-tour
The Tuscan countryside is as beautiful as advertised but is harder to experience as a tourist with limited time than most of us would like. Be sure to allow yourself time to experience the slow pace of life which is part of the charm.
Have a great trip,
=Tod
@SandyO
I just checked, and that specific book is not available to ship to Canada soon unfortunately :-(
Tours By Roberto was fully booked for our date, which is on a Wednesday (Market day it seems!!).
Also, since it's only my husband and I, there's no one to split the cost of a private door with us.
I was also considering Verrazzano Winery! The tour with the lunch is offered only at noon, which I thought gives us a late start to our day? They also have a tour with "snacks" at 11 am. Do you know if we can just drop by for tasting and some food without the tour, which gives us more flexibility with our schedule? Or is the tour worth it?
What would you suggest we do with the rest of our day after the winery? We could just continue for a scenic drive south to Val d'Ocia, but I'm not sure it's worth it or a good use of our time. Or we can go to Siena, or to San Gimignano, or both if we find we have the time.
Thanks for your help!
@gerri With a wine tasting, would you usually easily surpass that limit? It would be boring to go for a wine tasting and only for me to taste the wine and not my husband! LOL.
You're suggesting I do the winery last, for dinner? And to start in San Gimignano then Siena? It's interesting, since I was thinking of doing it the opposite way! Lunch at winery, then Siena, then San Gimignano if we have time!
Is the Verrazzano winery very touristic? It looks like a popular choice.
@hiredman
We deducted a day from Florence to stay one more day in Cinque Terre and the riviera, so we only have one free day outside of Florence to do a full day trip. For sure we would like to do one winery (we're not huge wine connoisseurs, but we would enjoy experiencing it in Tuscany once!). We decided on Siena and San Gimignano since they're on the same route and seem like a "must-see". We were really interested in Lucca but it's not in the same direction as the winery, and I feel like the other two towns are more important to see with our limited time ?
We want quick stops in each of the areas and not necessarily explore everything they have to offer. We would've loved to give each stop more time, but we want to get a feel for the countryside and explore as much as possible with our free day. We liked the idea of being flexible with the car, which gives us the freedom to stop wherever we want, whenever we want, and to change our itinerary if we feel like doing something different than we initially planned.
We care more about the winery's scenery, than the wine itself, which is why we wanted to make sure to stop at one winery. We even would be interested in something like olive oil tasting, or balsamic vinegar tasting.
Thanks for all the recommendations!
Having driven in Tuscany at least 6 times, we have found that going to the farthest location first saves time (San Gimignano or Siena). As a designated driver, I’ve found that explaining to our host that I want smaller pours or taste and spit (sometimes a waste of a great wine) works out well. We do usually find a wine we really like and purchase to have in our lodging later that evening. (Usually 4 of us traveling)
Figure, in your instance, by the time you pick up the car, and drive to Verrazzano, it should be around 11:00. I’d do lunch here! Food is fantastic! Then head to Greve or Siena for the rest of the day.
@Gerri, that makes sense. Do you think we'd have time to do all three places? Actually my husband, who'll be driving, can drink a sip of each tasting, then i'll get the rest of his tastings! It's a good idea to allow us to explore by car. From experience, you would suggest we do the winery first (with tour?) and lunch then Siena for the rest of the day?
I think it would be too much to do winery, Siena and San Gimignano in the same day.
Siena is larger and getting to parking takes time. We always park by the stadium which is very central
Greve is near Castello di Verrazano and it’s a fun small town to visit. Also, the small town of Montefioralle is above Greve - it’s often photographed and is lovely to walk through. You would have time for San Gimignano and if you go later in the afternoon, the tour buses are starting to leave.
A nice family owned winery near Greve is Panzanello - the owners are delightful, the property is beautiful and you can have lunch there. Not as touristy as Verrazano.
Panzanello winery looks great, and they have olive oil! Did you get lunch when you visited?
Also, are you suggesting we skip Siena for San Gimignano or the smaller towns? I was thinking we do Siena, and if ever we don't stay there too long, we can visit other towns.
We are thinking of either doing Chianti + Siena, or Pienza and Montepulciano with winery stop (Val d'orcia region). We will rent the car that day as early as possible and drop it off at night. Any suggestions on which way to go?
