Where to stay (in the country) while visiting Tuscany and Florence areas

How long is your trip? Where do you plan on flying in and out of?

What time of year?

Where are you picking up a car?

Without more information, it's hard to give you the answers that will help.

To me the shortest amount of time
would be:

Sorrento 3 nights.

Rome 4 nights

Day trip to Orvieto. Pick up car.

Drive to Montepulciano 2-3 nights.

Then base in a Tuscan Agriturismo
4-5 nights
Within an hours drive of your other destinations.

Hope this is of some help

The two of us are going in late summer/fall. Flying into Rome and flying out of Venice. We will have rental car from Rome on and will return it when we arrive in Venice.

Here is our schedule:
Rome - 3 nights - all set up and booked - no changes
Sorrento- 2 nights - all set up and booked - no changes

Here is what we are trying to work around and find something in the country to stay.
2 nights in Tuscany area - country B&B or near a winery?

1 night in San Gimignano - all set up and would really like to stay in this hotel - don't think we want to change this??

2 nights in Lucca/Florence area - in the country and drive in to see Lucca and Florence for the day

We have this all set up:
3 nights in Cinque Terre

We have this set up, but any other suggestions on good places to stay would be helpful:
2 nights in Venice - also leaving very early for flight home, so need to leave very early last day.

Is your flight booked? Is there any opportunity to switch Rome and Naples ?
If not, try flying into Naples. Then Curreri Viaggi bus to Sorrento.

Reverse bus, Train to Rome.
Pick up car as you leave Rome.

Montepulciano would make a good base for this part of Tuscany.

Try 2 nights in San Gimignano, Florence is around an hour. Observe all ZTL's
Park outside the walls.

1 night Lucca.

2 nights Monterosso the only town with parking.

2 nights Venice.

For estimated travel times use
Rome2rio.

This is a very fast paced trip.

What does ZTL's mean? And yes our flight is booked already.

Any ideas of the names of hotels to stay in Montepulciano or in the Tuscany area in the country not directly in the cities (we will be visiting them during the day - we would like to stay in the country) - not right in the cities because we are staying in the cities the other days of our trip and trying to slow down the pace a little bit in the middle section of out trip.

ZTL is a Zona Traffico Limitato - you need a permit to drive into this zone, without that permit your license plate will be photographed, your car rental company will give the police your info, and 10 or more months later a ticket will arrive in the mail. Don't drive in a ZTL.

I think you need to look at a guidebook that has driving info, lots of regs to be familiar with.

It's the Zona Traffico Limitato. You'll find this around City Centers and Tuscany. You don't want to drive in those or you'll be fined. Roberto has some great inforamtion in this link including what the signs look like https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/how-to-avoid-driving-into-historic-areas-in-italy-and-europe-in-general

The red circle means no cars allowed. The numbers underneath are the times of day, using the 24-hour clock. You'll notice cars driving in there, they either has a special or resident pass to drive in, or is a tourist that will be fined. You'll notice camera's around these area's also

It's old but In 2008 in Florence – a city of 365,000 residents – almost 900,000 tickets were issued for traffic violations. Of those, more than half were given for driving unauthorized in an area of restricted access.

Thank you all, we will have to do some searching of the best places to stay in these areas now.

This info is why I recommend you not pick up your car until after your Rome visit. Look at the Florence site too.

https://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/dont-mess-with-ztl-zones

Please read it carefully.

You could also pick one up in Sorrento, but again, not till you leave.

we have done a similar trip, we loved san gim, but also stayed in cortona and stayed at fiesole ( just outside florence) and caught the bus in to florence. and joselo near venice.
having a car is great but as you know try and find places where you can park outside the 'local zone' and either walk or catch a local bus. it has worked for us and its interesting to catch a local bus and experience what the locals do.

Staying at places like jesolo and fiesole really made our trip.

you should love sorrento, such a great place.

We have had wonderful luck with Hotel Sovestro and Ristorante da Pode, just outside San Gimignano. It provides very easy access since it is not in the town and there is plenty of free parking. The hotel is very comfortable and includes a more-than-adequate breakfast. The restaurant is very good and we have always enjoyed any meal we have had there. It is literally 17 steps from the door of the hotel.

You may want to check out these accommodations: http://www.montemaggioretuscany.it/

They have 3 different locations around Tuscany (one is technically in Umbria, but only 30 minutes from Siena). They also produce wine and olive oil. They have been most helpful in booking our upcoming stay there in April.

Sorrento is beautiful but not on the way in your case so you have added some backtracking with gives you no time on your 1st day in Tuscany as a result.
Not sure I would call it a busy city either, or least not like Rome or a US city ; more like a popular resort town.
Since you cannot change that, other comment you can change is you have 5 nights in Tuscany (likely arriving late the 1st night) but plan on staying in 3 different places, that does not sound like a good idea.
Why not stay at the San Gim place you know you like for 2 or 3 nights and then pick one other place (Montepulciano) for example for the other.
if you have a car you can do day trips.
Staying inside Montepulciano I am not sure if qualifies as the country to you or within a city. It is a tiny walled city surrounded by countryside. You could look at agristrimo's outside of Montepulciano if you truly want the country experience for a couple of nights.
Just be advised ZTL's are in all of the smaller cities/towns as well so best to plan which towns you will visit and park in the lots outside of any ZTL zones, logistically because you cannot drive inside the towns it makes it hard to visit many different towns in the same day so you may want to lose not add options on how to spend your days.

Are you driving to the Cinque Terre? Most everyone recommends leaving the car in La Spieza and training back and forth.
Definitely read up on that and if you are driving that may limit you to only 1 town option to stay in of Monterosso

You also have very little time in Venice. You need to plan on a long travel time to reach Venice from the CT and then leave early the 2nd day so that leaves you with 1 day in Venice only. Given that you might want to stay close to main transit in Venice like walkable to Piazzale Roma to easily reach it after car drop off and ease of getting to the airport for the early flight out.

Lv2Trvl: best advise for you today is to map out your plan on paper for each day.
Start with arrival airport time, add time as needed to do things like go through security, get rental cars, look at train schedules anywhere you would taking a train to and from, checking driving distances via google maps.
Keeping in mind the ZTL type issues for your visits add time to park the car, take a bus or similar into town center to explore for each town. Figure out how you will reach and depart your Venice lodging as it is an island.

I think this is the only way you will understand how rushed you are going to be. Being rushed can work but will take a good plan.

Lastly if you are from the US, you will need to go to a AAA location to get an International Driver's Permit for each driver. It is illegal to drive in Italy without one, and I don't know of anywhere other than a AAA office to get one. They charge a fee and "translate" your US license ; you need not be a member.

With all of your help (especially reynolds and gerri) I have somewhat revised our itinerary (we are still tweaking it and may change our hotels, etc.

Days 1 – 3
- Explore Rome – tours of Vatican, other sites, etc.

Day 4
Pick up car from train station
Drive from Rome to Sorrento (3 hrs 9 min)
Stop at Pompeii on the way (reserve a private tour?) Eat lunch – where?
Eat dinner and explore Sorrento at night

Day 5
Explore Sorrento – (Drive to Pompeii for our tour this day??)

Day 6
Drive from Sorrento to Orvieto 3 hrs 54 min (have lunch)
Drive to Montepeluciano (51 mins) Explore Montepeluciano and eat dinner

Day 7
Wine Tour?
Montalcino?
Assisi?

Day 8
1 day - Heart of Tuscany tour (3-4 hours) includes La Foce Garden tour, Siena, possible Brunello Winery tour?
- La Foce Gardens, (Make resv - Guided tour only, €10-50 min tours, 11:30 &15:00 (3pm) on Sat.)
- Visit Pienza, etc. – lunch?
- Stop for great photo ops of Cypress lined driveways, etc.
- Dinner??

Day 9
Drive to Greve in Chianti or San Gimignano for 2 nights. We are looking for an Agriturismo, B&B or similar type place to stay with homemade dinner or meals/family-run, etc. (Most of these that we have looked into do not have air conditioning, and that may not be what we want to stay in - but undecided right now.) We are visiting Pisa, Lucca and Florence from this place. Any suggestions or names or places to check out?

• Visit Pisa and Lucca

Day 10
- Visit Florence for the day

Day 11
Drive from Greve in Chianti (or San Gimignano) to Monterosso in Cinque Terre(2hrs 18 min)

Day 12
Explore Cinque Terre Cities

Day 13
Explore Cinque Terre Cities

Day 14
Drive to Venice from Cinque Terre (4 hours 15 mins.)
- Return car to bus station
- We have a hotel booked, but would like suggestions for where to stay and since we have to leave so early 4-5am somewhere to catch a taxi back to the airport easily and quickly.

- Explore Venice

Day 15
Explore Venice

Day 16
Leave very early to make 7am flight (arrange taxi to airport from hotel)

Thanks for any new suggestions you may have!!!

For ease of travel and logistics ...

3 nights in Rome
Increase stay to 3 nights in Sorrento - days to Capri and Pompeii+Naples
Increase stay to 2 nights in San Gimignano - day to Siena
2 nights in Lucca - day to Florence
3 nights in Cinque Terre
2 nights in Venice

Perhaps park the car at San Miniato on the day you move from San Gimignano to Lucca and take the train in to Florence. However, you would need to consider the risk of leaving luggage in the car.

The overall plan looks great now.
Since you have narrowed down your questions to much more specific things you will likely be best served by posting new specific questions in regional specific areas.