Day Trips from Florence

Pisa on its own is the easiest DIY day in Tuscany. Regional trains leave Santa Maria Novella through the day, take about an hour, and put you at Pisa Centrale, a twenty-minute walk from the Campo dei Miracoli; both figures are journey-planner and competitor-reported, and the fare has to be priced live on trenitalia.com because no table is published. The tower climb requires a pre-booked slot, and the reserved tower and cathedral ticket is €24. Two hours in the Campo, lunch on Borgo Stretto, and you are back in Florence by four with the evening free.

The coach suits anyone who wants Siena and San Gimignano in the same day. Then the three-town tours below do the driving: the cheapest three-town day is €44, rated 4.5 from 9,346 reviews, 12 hours; the most-reviewed version at €49 adds a sit-down lunch. Both stop at Pisa for about an hour, which is enough for the photograph and not for the climb. The single-destination page is the Pisa day by regional train.

Pisa: DIY versus tour

What each route costs in time and money, with the train fare left for you to price live.

Lucca is the quiet alternative to Pisa and the better town to spend a day in: a complete Renaissance wall you can cycle around in forty minutes, the oval Piazza dell'Anfiteatro built on the Roman arena, and the Guinigi tower with oaks growing on top. The regional train takes about 1 h 20, direct, and the station sits just outside the south wall, so there is no bus to find. Fare not published; price it live.

The only card that includes Lucca is the Pisa and Lucca day with buccellato tasting, €51, rated 4.5 from 349 reviews, 9 hours. It suits a traveller who wants both towns without changing trains. Travellers who want their own timings take the train, ride the walls on the self-guided bike tour at €18 and eat at a trattoria on Via Fillungo. Full page: Lucca inside the walls.

Siena's Campo, the striped cathedral and the Palazzo Pubblico frescoes fill a day by themselves. The regional train takes about 1 h 30 and arrives at a station below the town with an escalator climb; the AT fast bus 131R takes about 1 h 15 and drops you at Piazza Gramsci, inside the walls. The bus fare is banded by distance: band 8, 70 to 80 km, is €10.90 single or €16 bought on board, and Florence to Siena is about 75 km by road, but the band assignment for this route is not verified on the fare sheet, so treat €10.90 as a probable figure rather than a quoted one. Train fares are not published.

The coach versions add San Gimignano and Pisa: the winery-lunch day at €134, rated 4.8 from 5,164 reviews, 12 hours, is the highest-rated Tuscany day on the platform, and the Chianti-tasting version at €70 rated 4.6 from 3,932 reviews is the value pick. Single-destination detail: Siena by the fast bus.

Siena: DIY versus tour

Bus band and train time as published, with the caveats printed where they belong.

The tower town has no railway. On your own it is a regional train to Poggibonsi and a local bus up the hill, with the return timed against a bus that runs less often than you want it to; competitor-reported, and the reason most people pair it with Siena on a coach. The town itself takes two hours: the Collegiata frescoes, the Torre Grossa climb, a gelato in Piazza della Cisterna and the walk out to the Rocca for the view over the vines.

The four-stop day at €58, rated 4.6 from 4,877 reviews, adds Chianti wine and lunch to Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano in 12 hours; it is the busiest itinerary on this page and the one that shows the most for the money. The three-town versions at €49 and €44 are in the combined Tuscany days below.

San Gimignano: DIY versus tour

Time and cost for the two ways up the hill, with the Poggibonsi bus connection that decides most people's choice.

Chianti is a landscape, not a town, and it has no station. The bus 365A reaches Greve in Chianti in about 50 minutes, competitor-reported, and Greve's piazza and butcher are worth the ride, but the wineries are scattered along the SR222 and a tasting without a driver is a tasting with a problem. This is the destination where a tour is the sensible answer rather than the expensive one.

The tours compared here span four budgets. The Chianti wineries tour with tasting at €49, rated 4.5 from 11,454 reviews, runs 5 to 6.5 hours and is the most-booked. The small-group wine-tasting tour at €88, rated 4.9 from 4,458 reviews, is 4.5 hours and the best-rated. The Vespa days are the ones people photograph: the Chianti Vespa tour with an e-car option at €117, 6 hours, and the countryside Vespa tour with tastings at €149, 5 hours, both rated 4.8. Full page: Chianti wineries with and without a car.

Chianti: bus versus tour

The bus and the tours compared here side by side, prices and ratings as shown on the platform, with what each route leaves you at the end of the day.

On your own the Cinque Terre is a high-speed train to La Spezia, a change to the Cinque Terre Express, a Cinque Terre card for the local line and the paths, and a return that must leave Monterosso by late afternoon to make the La Spezia connection. It can be done and it is a long day of tickets. The coach tours drive to La Spezia or Manarola, hand you the local train or the boat between villages, and bring you back without the connection maths. This is why the highest-rated day trip on the platform is here.

The Cinque Terre day trip with optional hiking or Pisa at €54, rated 4.9 from 5,886 reviews, runs 12 to 13 hours. The Cinque Terre and Pisa combination at €78, rated 4.7 from 3,151, adds the tower stop. The Cinque Terre with optional street food at €47, rated 4.5 from 3,367, is the cheapest, at 12 hours. Full argument: why the Cinque Terre tour beats the train change at La Spezia.

Cinque Terre: train versus coach

The tickets you buy on your own against the three coach days, with platform prices and ratings and the connection at La Spezia that makes the difference.

No card, because none is needed. The Frecciarossa takes about 40 minutes and the fare is cheapest booked a week or more ahead; walk-up high-speed fares climb steeply. Bologna's Centrale station is a fifteen-minute walk from Piazza Maggiore, the Two Towers and the food streets of the Quadrilatero, and the porticoes up to San Luca fill the afternoon.

It is the one day trip where lunch is the point, and where you come back to Florence with more in the bag than you left with. Full page: Bologna in forty minutes on the Frecciarossa.

The cypress-lined roads on the postcards are here, south of Siena, and no railway reaches them. Montalcino for Brunello, Pienza for pecorino and the view from the terrace, Montepulciano for Vino Nobile and the steep main street. Two tours cover it at the same price: the Val d'Orcia tour with wine tasting at €73, rated 4.7 from 1,410 reviews, 11.5 hours, and the Montalcino, Pienza and Montepulciano day with tastings, €73, rated 4.7 from 366 reviews, 12 hours.

A hire car works if someone is not tasting; the ZTL rules on the way back are below.

Three rules cover every row on this page. One town and your own timings suit the train: Pisa, Lucca, Siena and Bologna each have a station and a walkable centre. Three towns, take the coach: no combination of regional trains and rural buses gets you to Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano and back in a day without a car. No station, take the tour: Chianti and the Val d'Orcia are wine country, and the person who drives does not taste.

The ratings settle ties. Across the fifteen cards on this page the coach days rate between 4.5 and 4.9, and the two highest, the Cinque Terre day with optional hiking at 4.9 from 5,886 reviews and the Siena winery-lunch day at 4.8 from 5,164, are the two where the coach does the most work. Durations run 4.5 hours for the short Chianti tasting to 13 hours for the Cinque Terre. Children aged 4 to under 12 pay 50% on regional trains, the only official fare fact Trenitalia publishes; child prices on the tours are on each card.

A hire car is the right tool for the Val d'Orcia and the wrong one for the return into Florence. The ZTL cameras run Monday to Friday 7:30 to 20:00 and Saturday 7:30 to 16:00, off on Sundays and holidays, and from the first Thursday of April to the first Sunday of October a summer night ZTL adds Thursday to Saturday 23:00 to 03:00. Drive back through a gate at 19:45 on a Tuesday and the camera has your plate; the fine amount is not stated on the city's page, and fine enquiries go to the Municipal Police.

Two ways round it. If your hotel is inside the zone, give your plate to reception or the garage on arrival and the hotel transmits it to the Municipal Police, which registers you for the stay. Otherwise leave the car at a Parcheggi Scambiatori park-and-ride on the edge of the city, linked by tram and bus, and ride in on a €2 urban ticket valid 90 minutes, or €3 bought on board. The full rules and the park-and-ride sites are on the ZTL and park-and-ride rules.

Fiesole is the day trip that fits before lunch. Bus 7 from Piazza San Marco climbs to the hill town in about 25 minutes, competitor-reported and unverified on an official timetable, on the same €2 urban ticket that covers the tram; the Roman theatre, the monastery of San Francesco and the view back down over the Dome take two hours. The Piazza San Marco stop is a five-minute walk from the Accademia, so a morning David and an afternoon Fiesole is a workable day.

For wine in half a day the Chianti cards do it: the small-group wine tasting at €88 is 4.5 hours, the Chianti Vespa tour with e-car option at €117 is 6 hours, and the wineries tour at €49 runs 5 to 6.5. All three leave you an evening in Florence.

Possible, not advised, is the short verdict for all four. Here is the arithmetic with its caveat: all of it competitor-reported train times rather than official ones and none of it with fares. Rome is about 1.5 hours on the fast train, which makes a day possible: leave at 7:00, six hours in the city, back for dinner.

Milan is about 1 h 55 each way, so a day is four hours of trains for five of Milan. Venice is 2 hours and more, and a day there is mostly the return. Lake Como is about 3 hours each way via Milan and is not a day trip from Florence by any honest count; stay a night or go from Milan.

Florence as a day trip from Rome, Milan or Venice is the reverse question and gets the same answer: Rome works, the others are a long day.