day trips and shopping
You're very welcome sweetie!
Since you have 5 days for your time in Florence and Tuscany, I suggest something like this:
Day
1 - Florence
2 - Pisa / Lucca
3 - Siena
4 - shopping at the Barberino outlets / Florence
5 - shopping at The Mall / Florence
Both Florence and Siena merit full days, as you'll be staying in Florence you'll have the evenings to stroll and eat out and get to know it better. Pisa is a half day trip and you can combine the rest of the day by going to Lucca which is about a 30 min train ride away and from Lucca return to Florence.
You can fit two days of shopping on two separate days in the mornings until you feel like it, then come back to enjoy Florence some more the rest of the day! See, it is possible!
I suppose you'll be coming up from Rome to Florence by train - you'll arrive in the Santa Maria Novella (SMN) train station and since both trains and SITA buses leave from here, you'll get to know the station really well over your week.
For trains: If you go to the
Ferrovie dello Stato website and enter "Firenze" as your departure city and "Pisa" as your arrival, and then from "Pisa" to "Lucca" and then from "Lucca" to "Firenze", you'll get all the timetables for the trains. All are regional trains so you can buy your tickets at the SMN train station the day before your day trip or even on that morning - they are tickets that are valid for 2 months and are not for any particular train. The regional trains have no assigned seating, you get on and look for free seats. You have the freedom of taking whatever train you wish, so I think it is a great system when you're out sightseeing, no need to worry about catching one particular train!
Just look at the big "PARTENZE/DEPARTURES" leaderboard and see what track the next departing train to your destination is leaving from. And make sure you stamp the ticket in the yellow boxes (found at the beginning of each track) before you get on the train to show the time you got on.
For buses: the SITA bus station is right next to the SMN train station so you're also departing from here to go to Siena, to the Mall and to the Barberino outlets. I'd make it a point to stop there on your first or second day and pick up all the current timetables for your destinations. I already told you the ones to The Mall above and linked the 2007 pdf I found to the Barberino outlets which I am not sure are still current. The
Florence-Siena times are here from this past year (you want to take the "rapide" which are direct). Where you get off at your destination is where you catch the bus back to Florence. In any case, if you stop at the bus station you can make sure you have the most current timetables.
As for
places to stay in Florence, if you want 2 rooms you might want to look into an apartment. This has the advantage of offering a small kitchen area as well so you can easily arrange for your own breakfast and choose to eat in some meals. Here are some suggestions all within the historical center in Florence to make moving around easy for you during your week:
- this
Florence apartment would be perfect for the 3 of you ladies with the double bedroom and single bed second room - it also fits perfectly with your budget
- This
apartment near Ponte Vecchio is slightly more expensive than your budget but it has that terrace with a view you were looking for
- this
apartment near SMN train station is just 1 block away and has only 1 double bedroom, the third person would have to sleep on the sofa bed. Many apartments are organized in this way with sofa beds to provide 1-2 extra sleeping spots. This
apartment near Piazza Santa Croce is in a lovely neighborhood, on the same site. Check out the website for more options and contact them directly to get availability and precise cost for the week for all of the apartments you might be interested in, you should find one that will be perfect for the 3 of you.
Hope you're enjoying the planning!! Helping you out with suggestions almost seems like I'm planning my own trip out in Tuscany which is fun so I hope these suggestions are useful and everything turns out well
![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
I fully expect you to come back on here after your vacation and tell us how everything went, if things were as expected and if you found the train/bus system easy or confusing. Feedback helps everyone else on the forum out, there are a lot of first time visitors to Tuscany on here that just read and don't post
![Wink ;) ;)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)