First time visiting Italy - suggestions?

We’re starting to plan a trip to Italy in October and would appreciate some advice on the best way to organize the visit. It will only be a week and a half.

General questions:

How much time to dedicate to Florence? I saw Ted’s tour guide recommendation and will probably try to contact him. I’ve also read the varous restaurant recommendations but if there’s anything new that someone would like to suggest please feel free to post!

I was leaning towards renting an apartment in Florence - would a hotel be a better idea given that neither of us speak Italian?

What are other must see areas? Would it be feasible to must stay in Florence and make day excursions elsewhere or should we pack our bags and rent hotel rooms for a night here and there? Is a car rental necessary or can we get by with trains and buses?

Bear in mind that I want to minimize wine-related tourism as it would bore Arnold silly but one or two suggestions might be nice.

Any areas with good antiquing (if Arnold puts up with a little wine tourism the least I can do is be bored silly on his account once in a while )?

Thank you all in advance!

Rome - Kinda must see for first timers.

I was happy with a day in Florence. My wife would disagree. You can train it to Pisa and Lucca in the same day. Both are good 1/2 day places to visit. Lucca - Wikipedia

I think there’s public transportation to Sienna. That’s the major town in (what’s considered) Tuscany. You will need a car to visit the various hill towns. It’s a must. Speaking of highway driving, I was impressed with Italian drivers. They’ll flash you if you’re going slow. All you have to do is move over. It’s not a game like it is here in the U.S. Watch your speed on the highway. I recently read that Italy has cameras that will time your trip between each camera. If you arrive early, you’ll get a ticket.
You are not allowed to take a car into the City Center (of many towns). We were two couples. The A personality wouldn’t heed my advice. His ticket arrived several months later. I parked a few blocks away.

My preference is to stay between Florence and Sienna and day trip it. We’ve rented houses in the area of Radda and Castellina which gives you 30-45 minutes to a lot of the hill towns (which I enjoy), Florence (which I think you definitely want to experience for more than a day) and Sienna. It’s a bit further to Pisa (if you are interested in that) and Lucca, and even take a run up the Cinque Terre if you start early enough

Leaving tomorrow for a week on the Amalfi coast and 6 nights in Rome… Will let you know.

George

Siena is great. The small hill towns, San Gimignano, Volterra…are a must. Chianti region is sort of worth a day…Rome is a must. Lucca is cool. A rental car is probably the way to go.

You could not see everything there is to see in Italy if you had a whole year. So you might want to ask yourself, do you think you are likely to go again? In that case, staying in Florence and doing day trips makes sense. At least it does if you love art and Renaissance history and architecture.

But if this might be your only trip, no one should live their whole life without visiting Rome and Venice.

We rented an apt in Certaldo which allowed us to train it in to Florence and then visit the hill towns and wineries. Get your tickets online for the Uffizi to avoid the line. Rome can be a trip itself.

Where on Amalfi, big guy?

rented a house right on the coast in Praiano

Good you can quit bitching about Crawford!

Have a great trip!

Thank you everyone for the advice!

I suspect it wont be my only trip but am unwilling to predict the future. I was originally going to visit Florence back in 2001 but my travelling companion died several months before the trip so I cancelled.

Arnold is much keener on travelling than I am. He reacted grumpily to my suggestion that we take the money we would spend on airfare and hotels and eat at all the top restaurants in NYC for a week while visiting museums, botanic gardens, picnic in Central Park, etc. .

Jay,

As I most likely won’t be able to see the games. I was hoping you could man up and cover for me.

George

So is there parking readily available if we drive from there to Florence then? My perspective may be warped by NYC parking here. I can barely decipher our parking signs and they’re in English.

Wear a money belt.

We’ve never had trouble driving in from the south side over the river. I understand that some private lots have gotten really expensive, though. Also, there used to be lots of parking south of the river (for example, at the Piazzale Michelangelo, which is definitely worth a visit)

Another option is to park at a tram stop outside town and take the tram in

Jay,
NYC restaurants as an alternative?? Unless you have a serious fear of traveling or meet with an unlikely calamity, you will look back and realize that the trip was exponentially a better alternative.

Plan on pretty much losing the first and the last day due to traveling. I don’t see how one would do Florence over Rome if they have not been before. With that amount of time, I’d say do Rome and Florence/Tuscany. You could cram Venice in. My wife was on her first trip to Italy last years so we did all three in 10 days. But it was rushed and a lot of moving. Though for her purposes was better than doing two stops. The fast train from Rome to Florence is easy and not long. Maybe 2 1/4 hrs?
I think one needs four days in rome including some lost travel time. I think one needs 2-3 days in Florence for the city itself, not at breakneck speed. Then there are the side trips outside of Florence. Even if you don’t necessarily dwell on wine you can easily make two full day excursions to Siena and some place like San Gimignano/Greve/Lucca-Pisa/etc… Personally I don’t love Siena, especially if Florence is included. One Siena day is enough.
If you tried to do Venice you can do it in two days. It is a sight to see, but there’s no more to do there than in Florence and less if you factor Tuscany outside of Florence in.
You can rent a place in mid-Tuscany and drive up to Florence and down to Siena. This especially works if you are not going to go heavy on Florence time and are really into the wine aspect. If not, I think just staying in Florence is a good alternative for say four nights and driving to excursions. If you opted against the Venice add-on, it’s also possible to stay 2-3 nights in Florence and 2 nights down south in Tuscany. More moving but aside from the checking in/out you can make that drive in and hour.
For all of this we flew to Rome. A car there is a NO. Train up to Florence. Stayed a few nights with no car to do city. Within the city rental driving is very tricky and cabs/walking is easy. Rented a car in the city (which is easy and done via the net) and immediately headed out to stay down in southern Tuscany for a few nights, a one-hour drive. Then you have the car which is needed to tour Tuscany. Returned the car afterward in Florence and went straight to train-station nearby for trip to Venice, where again no one gets a car. To do this we flew into Rome and out of Venice. Seeing Florence, Rome, and Venice would be very hard flying in and out of Rome or Venice, and moderately hard in-and-out of Florence. If you have to fly in-out of one spot I would not do all three cities in less than two weeks.

Normally I agree with John, but I adore Siena, have been both there and Florence multiple times. No cars in the center of town makes it amazingly soothing, and the Campo is splendid.

Much easier to do day trips from Siena to San Gmignano or Montalcino. I’d choose Rome, Siena, Florence.

I’ve also stayed in between Siena and Florence = it was great, but I prefer to walk/cab home from dinner as the wine there is affordable and excellent.

This is all remarkably useful advice. Thank you!

Barry, I know that I have a lesser opinion of Siena as compared to Florence than many. Truth is I have only been to Siena the one time. I could see going to both, but if only one think Florence is more of a must. It seems to me that the museums in Florence are in a whole different league and it tops Siena for other historic sights too. If one has never been I don’t think the Florence stuff can possibly be done in even two days. I also think that there is good food in both, but more and better in Florence. If one indeed was shooting to do a bunch of tripping into southern Tuscany, then Siena is absolutley more centralized. But it doesn’t seem like the wine angle is of premiere importance for Jay’s trip. It’s also really hard to daytrip to Pisa/Lucca from Siena if that is of interest.
My trip next year is going to be a villa stay around Greve or Radda to just camp there and daytrip. But that would be more chill and wine-related and not as ideal for someone trying to see the cities’ sights.