Vacationing for 8 days in the Florence & Tuscany regions

That's not much information you've given, but I'll give it my best shot. If you stay IN Florence -- which is a beautiful city, full of renaissance art and many, many sites to see to keep you busy, you won't need a car. Florence is a BIG transportation hub, both bus and train transportation.

From Florence, you can take a bus to Siena and a number of beautiful Tuscan towns as day trips. I always stay in Florence, because I love Her. Maybe someday I will spread my wings a little and stay in the countryside, but then I'll have to 'day trip' into Florence, and will short-change myself on the beautiful Piazzas at night, and will miss Her.

So, that's your choice. Use a rental car and stay in the countryside, which is beautiful, and day-trip into Florence, or stay IN Florence and use public transportation to see the outlying towns. There are also various tours available that depart from Florence and take people to wineries, etc., for full day excursions.

As Donna says, your first decision is how much time you want to spend in Florence vs how much time you want to spend in other places in Tuscany. This, in turn will determine whether you will need a car and for how long, and where you will spend your nights. There's no right or wrong answer, and we don't know your tastes, so you should start doing some research with books and videos (Rick's are on Hulu or Youtube, via this link: http://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show).

Otherwise, getting "the most for my days" will depend on how you define "most." Do you want to see a lot of different towns, or spend more time in fewer places to get more of a feel for the ones you do see? Are you very interested in Renaissance art, or cool to it? Did you want to do sightseeing focused on wine, food, natural beauty, bike riding, or something else? And - very important - did you want to have a car, NOT want to have a car, or can you go either way?

Tell us more about your interests, and what you hope to get out of your time in Florence and the rest of Tuscany, and people can be more specific.

We are taking a train from Rome to Florence
We'll spend three days in Florence than rent a car to go to the Chianti region for a few days
train from Florence back to Rome

Not worth having a car in Florence unless it's your home base and you'll do day trips to the hill towns