Day tours around Florence, Italy

Which tour are you booked on? I’m thinking of the April 8-18 tour.

We took the bus from Sienna to Florence. It took maybe an hour or hour and a half. Sienna was fun to walk around and the cathedral is beautiful. That would be a do-it-yourself tour I guess, though.

Have you been to Florence before? If not, I'd spend at least 2 of those days in Florence. Although I have not done this tour I looked at the itinerary and it only spends on full day and 1 half day there. The included sites are the Accademia and the Bargello. There is so much more!

I see Siena is on the tour so I won't suggest that.

I’ve not yet made the short (about 4 miles) trip outside of Florence to the northeast, but Rick Steves has suggested Fiesole as a worthwhile side trip.

Fiesole is lovely and quiet.
If you don’t mind hills you can walk up a path through the houses to get to a flat area with a fabulous view over Florence.
The archeological park is worth a visit too.
Local buses go up and down frequently……can’t remember the number of the bus, but it only takes 20 minutes if that.

There's plenty to see and do right in Florence. Sights that would be the pride of other cities are sometimes overlooked in the shadow of Florence's many top sights. But if you do want to head out, I once did a round trip Florence - Lucca - Pisa - Florence in a day by train. That was a full schedule, and didn't leave as much time in Lucca as I would have liked. Visiting just one of them would have allowed a slower pace. (You may already be visiting Lucca on your tour.) There's also a special historic train called Dante's Train (basically a tourist train using historical railcars) that travels out of Florence to the northeast. I think it used to go to Ravenna, another city with some top sights (excellent mosaics, and other things), but it appears that train may now end a bit short, in Faenza. It may still be possible to get to Ravenna by other connections, but I haven't checked the schedules to see if that could work out in a day. Looking at their website, I can't find any available dates, so I'm not sure this is still running. If it's not, regular train service should also be able to get you there, I think (unless there's still remaining damage to the tracks from flooding last year). Bologna is another city you might like to visit, also easy to reach by train. Parma and Modena are also nearby, but maybe too much to try to add to a day trip to Bologna. All these things I'm listing are things you can do independently by train.