domrocsmom
New member
I have been to Florence and the Tuscany region many times, but I will be coming back again in April with a long time friend who has never visited Italy. We will be staying in Rome for 10 days and doing a two and a half day side trip to Tuscany. We will be taking the high-speed train up from Rome to Florence and basing ourselves there. Since we will not have a car and do not want to drive we would like to hire a private driver to take us to some of the hill towns. We are not fans of large tour buses, or tours. We are more interested in just wandering around and wine tasting and having lunch. My favorite towns for this are Montalcino and Montepulciano. I also think it would be remiss to not have her visit San Gimignano, even though it is very touristy. I realize that the two first mentioned villages are far from Florence, but I really want her to see the Val d'Orcia, as it is just so picturesque. Leaving ample time to wander around Florence and spend the evenings there, I was thinking of either doing two morning trips to the neighboring hill towns. But my quandry is that Montalcino, Montepulciano and the Val d'Orcia are on the way back to Rome. Should we do one short trip to San Gimignano and maybe one other closer to Florence one day early from 9-2 then going back to Florence for the remainder of the day/evening and then go to the Val d'Orcia the second day on our way back to Rome and then either have the driver drive us into Rome and drop us at a train station and take the train back from there? Or should we spend only one night in Florence and one night somewhere in the Val d'Orcia, maybe in Pienza? Or is that just too much moving around? Thoughts?