So you planned your holiday to Italy, but aren’t going to spend any day in Florence and Tuscany? Terrible mistake, but in this article you can find how to see our beautiful city and our beautiful region even from Rome or Venice. If it’s a matter of visiting Florence city, then high-speed trains will help you: in 90 minutes, you can reach Florence from Rome, and in about 120 minutes, you can reach Florence from Venice. If you want to visit Tuscany instead, you will need to rent a car or buy a full-day trip by coach from Rome. Forget about visiting Tuscany from Venice, it’s too far away and any coach will take too much. Agencies are proposing some interesting packages involving train ticket plus guided tour, that you can find easily: the problem being that price is very different from package to package, and people don’t seem to understand the reason for this. By the number of reviews, it’s clear that they choose the low-price packages which, in the end, makes them unsatisfied. A couple of years ago, I was the tour guide for a day trip to Florence from Rome which was as weird as you can get: large group, bus instead of high-speed train, short time to visit the city. Basically, people had to go to the agency in Rome at 8 am and hop on the bus to reach Florence, where they would have lunch around 12:30 pm and then a 90 minutes guided tour. After one hour of free time, they would walk to the bus again to reach Rome between 10 and 11 pm. A day to remember, that’s for sure… as one of your worst days! Now, let’s forget about this, and let’s focus on your chances to spend a nice day instead, listing the best day trips to Florence (and Tuscany) from Rome and Venice.
Tuscany tour from Rome
This is a tour that can be done. It takes a while to reach Tuscany from Rome, but who organized this tour was smart enough to focus on the southern part of the region which is closer to the holy city. Still a trip that will wear you out, but if you want to visit Tuscany from Rome, this is your best chance. Wake up early and reach Piazza del Popolo in Rome, where the tour starts at 7:30 am, to hop on a private coach and head north for a scenic drive. After about 3 hours (the time to exit Rome plus almost 200 Km on the highway across Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany) you will reach Montepulciano, a renaissance Tuscan village famous for wine. Then you will head west to reach the ancient Sant’Antimo abbey on the hills of Montalcino, from where you will see the vineyards that produce the most famous Italian wine: the Brunello di Montalcino. Here you will have lunch and taste samples of wine, before getting to Pienza, one of the few cities planned to be an example of renaissance architecture: here you will have some free time, that I would use to taste samples of pecorino cheese, the most typical product (at your expense). Finally, you will hop on your coach to reach Rome, where you can expect to be at around 8:30 pm.
Day trips to Florence from Rome or Venice
This article should have been a list of the best day trips to Florence. Trips that are easy to organize, because of what I said about high-speed trains, and I was surprised not to see any, but then I realized that for a tour operator, organizing a tour by coach is much cheaper than paying your train tickets. Tours including train plus guided tour are extremely expensive, starting at € 259/person (from Rome), or you just have independent tours (with no tourist guide), which give you only the train ticket and the hop on/hop off bus ticket to explore Florence (€ 85/person from Rome or € 95/person from Venice). Any other day trip to Florence is by private coach, and in a 15-hours tour you will spend 8 hours or more on the bus, which is not something I feel like recommending.
Best day trips to Florence
Don’t let you fool out by the available offers. Take possession of your holiday and do the following: book train tickets yourself, at the official website of Trenitalia, choosing a high-speed train. Then, hire a professional local tour guide in Florence to arrange your personalized tour of the city. You will save money, tour at your pace, and go back to Rome (or Venice) happy for your day in Florence. Let me make an example. At the time of writing, a round trip ticket in standard class from Rome to Florence costs € 69/person. Leave Roma Termini station at 8:20 am and get to Firenze S. M. Novella at 9:51 am. Visit the city and go to see Michelangelo’s David inside the Accademia Gallery in about three hours with a private guide (will cost you € 180 for your entire party, plus € 16.50/person for Accademia skip-the-line ticket). Have lunch (not included), spend your afternoon exploring the city on your own, and get back to Rome, in time for dinner. This is a private tour: you have a cost per person (€ 85.50 for train tickets plus Accademia Gallery) and a fixed cost for the local tour guide, € 180 for three hours. It will be a great day, and it often saves money (depends on how large is your party) compared to the terrible coach tours with groups of 70 people. The choice is yours.
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- Florence Day Trip from Rome with Lunch Semi-Private Tour
- Price: $168.55
- Private Tour: All Day Trip From Rome to Florence
- Price: $140.46
- Florence Day Trip from Rome
- Price: $175.29
What other suggestions can you find in this section?
- The best Florence tours and activities reviewed by a tour guide
- Walking tours
- Uffizi tours
- Florence in one day
- Duomo tours
- Vasari Corridor tours
- Inferno tours
- Skip-the-line David tours
- What to do on Mondays
- Tours of Florence from Rome or Venice
- Florence outdoor activities
- Florence food tours
- Wine tours in Tuscany
- Cooking classes
- Wine tours in Florence
- Day trips from Florence to Tuscany countryside
- Day trips from Florence to Pisa
- Day trips from Florence to Siena
- Day trips from Florence to Cinque Terre
- Day trips from Florence to Rome
- Day trips from Florence to Venice
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