Two questions : the tour starts in Florence and ends in Lucca, so we are thinking of flying into Rome and taking a train to Florence and at the end of the tour we could take train from Lucca back to Rome and fly home. We would spend extra days in Rome on both ends. Is there a better way to get to Florence and home from Lucca? My second question, anyone with experience on this tour with suggestions for what they enjoyed doing if extra time in Lucca? Thanks ! Also, any favorite food tours in Rome?
Posted by
Bay Area SF & Uppsala Sweden 🇸🇪
1901 posts
We loved our Eating Europe morning tour of Testaccio in Rome, amazing lesser known neighborhood and wonderful food. It looks like you've been to Rome before, any plans what you'd like to see and what month will you be there?
Posted by
OP
13 posts
We’ll be starting the tour at the end of October and on our own time we hope to see some lesser known sites like churches such as Chiesa di San Carlino alla Quattro Fontana to see the ceiling and the museum Palazzo Massimo allé Terme to see the mosaic floors and old frescoes. Thank you for your food tour recommendation. I will check it out.
Posted by
Atlanta
2701 posts
I just returned from this tour in April and took the train from Lucca to Florence, then flew home from Florence to Paris CDG and to Atlanta. I think if you possibly can, spend another day in Lucca post tour to relax and see things you might have missed on the tour. Especially fun to do is to walk or bike around the medieval wall, about 2-1/2 miles. Also, we loved our visit to Puccini’s home, his birthplace! Go inside the magnificent San Michael Cathedral and soak up the gorgeous paintings.
Regarding routing for this trip, we flew round trip into and out of Florence bypassing Rome. I’ve been to Rome several times and wanted to not go there this time.
Florence free time ideas: We especially loved going into the Santa Maria Novella Church with amazing in situ paintings and also the Monastery, Museo San Marco, both in Florence.
In Volterra: see the fantastic Etruscan Museum.
This tour has a wide variety of places to stay and things to do that you will be very happy you picked this itinerary!
Enjoy!
Posted by
Portland, OR
180 posts
I love Rome, so if you haven't been, I think adding extra days before and after and flying to/from there makes sense.
I don't know what time of the year you are going, but keep in mind that all of Italy is very touristy, especially during the high seasons. Know what you want to see in Rome and purchase tickets for popular attractions in advance.
I took the RS Villages of Italy tour on the last tour of 2025, late October to early November, and we had fabulous weather, so you just never know these days about weather patterns.
I think that Florence is a beautiful city, full of history and art. Lucca was also a favorite of ours, so adding a day before and after the tour in these two locations would be good too, if you have extra time.
Train travel is easy in Italy, so I say yes to using the trains. Just do a bit of research first and know what you need to do once you are there. I use the Rome to Rio website or app, and it's a good resource for researching transportation options.
Don't overpack and really stick to the RS philosophy of packing light; it will make getting around so much easier.
Posted by
California
15 posts
It is a great Tour. You can find a previous post where I shared some of our Florence special activities See: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tours/day-tours-around-florence-italy I included a link to a fun art experience in Florence in my post.
With regards to which City to fly into we wound up selecting based on fares and what new places we might see. We kept an open mind and flew in and out of Bologna (40 min. Train to Florence) spending an extra night in Bologna (wish we had done longer). Keep in mind you can do a multi-city booking fly into one place and out of another. We had two days in Florence before the tour started.
We enjoyed the Tour time in Lucca, but for us not sure we needed more time. (You will see a variety of opinions.) For us after time in the smaller towns covered by the Tour, it felt like a big City. Some of the restaurants were crowded and needed reservations. One option if you have an interest in seeing Pisa and leaning tower, it is an easy partial day trip from Lucca (30 min by train). We actually did a day trip from Florence to Pisa the day the tour started.
Happy Travels!