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Tuscany in September Itinerary Advice?

Posted by (Evanston, IL) on

My partner and I will will have 14 full days to spend in Tuscany in September. We fly in and out of Florence and want to spend a few days there and several days in Bologna, with day trips to Modena, Parma, Dozza. Our preference is to just have 3-4 bases as we're using trains, no car. We like to mix sightseeing with wandering. We've been encouraged to spend a couple of days in Cinque Terre. I'd really like to go to Orvieto, inspired by many forum posts. I can't figure out a reasonable itinerary, mostly because we'll be going in and out of Florence for every connection. I welcome your insights and advice.

Florence 3 nights
Cinque Terre 2 nights (should we just make this a day trip from Florence?)
Orvieto 3 nights?
Bologna 5 nights (day trips 2-3 days)
Florence 2 nights

Posted by
8297 posts

Tuscany is one of those places where you can get so much more out of your trip with a rental car. Roads are well paved if a little crooked. But they're well marked and easily driven.

We picked our car up in Florence and drove to an agriturismo 30 minutes south of there. We used it for 4 nights doing day trips. We later went to Siena and down to Orvieto. We turned the Hertz car into their office which is across the parking lot from the Orvieto train station. Then we took a 70 minute train into Rome Termini.

With 14 nights to spend, you could branch out a little more than your itinerary shows. And the Rome FCO airport is a much better place to fly out of.

Posted by
1770 posts

Cinque Terre is a unique and beautiful place, but it comes with drawbacks including crowding from cruise ships in the autumn. Read up on it to see if it matches your interests. It can be done as a day trip from Florence, but it's arduous. Use the search box above to find the train details.

Posted by
27608 posts

That person who encouraged you to go to Cinque Terre--how recently has he or she been there, and what time of year was it? The area is massively over-touristed these days. It was lovely when I visited it (most recently in the 1990s), but that Cinque Terre is long gone.

I'm not telling you not to go, but you should go with your eyes open, realizing that it is definitely not a must-see at this point. And it takes quite a lot of train time to get there.

Posted by
13 posts

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful input. I think we might save Cinque Terre for another trip and find another day trip or two. We're still planning to stick to trains - but keeping an open mind ;)

I really appreciate your advice.

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