Is 7 days enough for Tuscany?

For one half of it, comfortably. For all of it, no. A week built around a single base — either the south around Siena and the Val d'Orcia, or the north-west around Lucca, Florence and the coast — gives you four or five proper days out and two or three at the house. A week that tries to cover both halves spends roughly nine hours in the car crossing between them.

Should I stay in one place or move around Tuscany?

One place, for a week. Villa rentals run Saturday to Saturday and the value of the house — the pool, the kitchen, the staff, the view — only accrues if you are in it. Moving every two nights turns a villa holiday into a hotel holiday with worse logistics.

Can I visit both Florence and Siena from the same villa?

Yes, but not from every base. From the north-west, Florence is about an hour and Siena an hour and three-quarters. From the Val d'Orcia, Siena is 45 minutes and Florence an hour and a half. Both are reachable from either; the question is which one you want to be close to, because only one will be.

Which part of Tuscany is best for a first visit?

The north-west, usually. Pisa airport is thirty minutes from Lucca, Florence is an hour, and the Versilia beaches are half an hour — so a first week gets the famous cities and the sea without long drives. The Val d'Orcia is the more beautiful countryside and the better second visit.

Do I need a car for a Tuscany villa holiday?

Yes. Villas sit in open country, the last stretch is often unmade white road, and there is no practical alternative. Book an automatic well ahead if you need one — they are scarce in Italy — and check whether your villa's approach needs anything more than a normal saloon.

How far is the Val d'Orcia from Lucca?

About two hours and fifteen minutes each way, on roads that do not reward hurrying. It is the single drive that most often spoils a week, because it looks short on a map and is not.

Exclusive Tuscany

Est. MMXXV

PlanningA 7-Day Tuscany Itinerary

Seven days in Tuscany, planned around the house.

Almost every seven-day Tuscany itinerary you will find is written as though Tuscany were one town. It is not. It is roughly the size of Wales, the roads through the hills are slow and beautiful rather than fast, and the difference between a good week and a tiring one is almost entirely decided before you arrive, by where you chose to sleep.

So this is organised the other way round. Pick the base first, then the week follows from it. There are two that make sense for a villa week, and they give genuinely different holidays: the south, around Siena and the Val d'Orcia, and the north-west, around Lucca, Florence and the country between them. Below is a real seven days for each, and an honest account of what is too far from each one.

In short

Choose the base first — the itinerary follows from it, not the other way round
Southern base (Siena, Val d'Orcia): Siena, Pienza, Montepulciano and Chianti are all inside an hour
North-western base (Lucca, Florence, Castelfalfi): Florence, Pisa, Lucca and the coast are all inside an hour
The two do not combine well in one week — Lucca to the Val d'Orcia is over two hours each way
Plan two days at the house for every day out; the house is the holiday
A car is essential, and the last mile is often unmade road

Start With the Base, Not the Map

The most common planning mistake is to write the list of places first — Florence, Siena, Pisa, San Gimignano, the Val d'Orcia — and then look for a villa somewhere in the middle of them. There is no middle. A house positioned to be an hour from everything is an hour from everything, which means a week of hour-long drives and no afternoon by the pool.

The better method is to accept that you will see one half of Tuscany properly rather than all of it thinly, choose which half, and take a house at its centre. Guests who do this tend to describe the week as restful. Guests who do the opposite describe the drives.

One more rule worth stating plainly, because it is the one people ignore: plan two days at the house for every day out. You are renting a private estate with a pool, a kitchen and a view. A week with six excursions in it is a week in which you have paid a great deal to park a car.

Seven Days From the South: Siena and the Val d'Orcia

This is the Tuscany of the photographs — the cypress avenues, the hill towns, the Brunello vineyards. Base yourself around Montalcino, Pienza or the Castiglion del Bosco estate and the following is comfortable, with nothing over an hour.

Day 1 — Arrive and stay put. Fly into Florence or Rome, drive down, and do nothing else. The last stretch is often white gravel road and you will not want to add a town to it.

Day 2 — Pienza and Montepulciano. Twenty minutes and forty minutes respectively. Pienza for the pecorino and the Renaissance grid, Montepulciano for the Vino Nobile cellars cut into the rock beneath the main street. Both are small enough to do properly in a morning and an afternoon.

Day 3 — At the house. Book the cook, or the wine grower, or neither.

Day 4 — Siena. Forty-five minutes. Go early, park outside the walls, and give it a full day; the Duomo floor alone justifies the drive. If your week falls on 2 July or 16 August, the Palio changes everything about the city and you should decide deliberately whether you want that.

Day 5 — At the house, or the Val d'Orcia slowly. San Quirico d'Orcia, Bagno Vignoni's thermal pool in the middle of the village, the abbey at Sant'Antimo. None of it more than half an hour.

Day 6 — Chianti or Cortona. Chianti's southern edge is about an hour and a quarter; Cortona is an hour east and quieter than its reputation suggests. Pick one.

Day 7 — The house, and pack slowly.

Where villas for this week actually are: the Castiglion del Bosco estate in the Val d'Orcia, and Montepulciano. Between them they hold the majority of our southern inventory.

Seven Days From the North-West: Lucca, Florence and the Country Between

A different holiday, and a better one for a first visit or a mixed group, because the famous cities and the sea are both close. Base yourself near Lucca, or in the country between Florence and Pisa.

Day 1 — Arrive. Pisa airport is thirty minutes from Lucca; Florence is about an hour. This is the practical advantage of the north-west and it matters more than people expect at the end of a transatlantic flight.

Day 2 — Lucca. Thirty minutes or less. Cycle the tree-lined walls, which is genuinely the best way to see the town, and eat somewhere off Piazza dell'Anfiteatro rather than on it.

Day 3 — At the house.

Day 4 — Florence. About an hour from Lucca, fifty minutes from the Castelfalfi side. Book the Uffizi or the Accademia weeks ahead, go for one of them rather than both, and leave before the evening traffic.

Day 5 — The coast. Viareggio and the Versilia beaches are half an hour from Lucca — proper Italian seaside with the Apuan Alps behind. Forte dei Marmi if you want the smarter end of it. This is the day that makes the north-west worth choosing: no southern base can offer it.

Day 6 — San Gimignano and Volterra. From the Castelfalfi side these are thirty and forty minutes; from Lucca nearer an hour and a quarter. Volterra is the more interesting of the two and much the less crowded.

Day 7 — Pisa, or the house. Pisa deserves an hour and a half, not a day, and works well on the way to the airport.

Where villas for this week actually are: Lucca and the Garfagnana, the Castelfalfi estate between Florence and Pisa, and Dimora Ghirlandaio.

The Drives That Catch People Out

Approximate times by car, in good conditions, before you add parking. Tuscan roads do not reward optimism: much of the distance is on two-lane roads through hills, and satnav estimates are frequently wrong by twenty minutes in the wrong direction.

From a southern base (Val d'Orcia / Montalcino): Pienza 20 minutes · Montepulciano 30 · Siena 45 · Cortona 1 hour · Chianti 1 hour 15 · Arezzo 1 hour 15 · Florence 1 hour 30 · Lucca 2 hours 15 · Pisa 2 hours 15 · the coast 2 hours+.

From a north-western base (Lucca): Pisa 30 minutes · Viareggio and the Versilia coast 30 · Florence 1 hour 10 · San Gimignano 1 hour 15 · Volterra 1 hour 20 · Siena 1 hour 45 · Val d'Orcia 2 hours 15.

The bolded figures are the ones that ruin weeks. Two and a quarter hours each way is four and a half hours of driving to see one town, and it is why we will tell you plainly that a single week cannot do both halves of Tuscany. If seeing Siena and the Val d'Orcia matters most, take a house in the south. If Florence, Pisa, Lucca and the sea matter most, take one in the north-west. Trying to have both produces a week of neither.

What to Leave Out

Cinque Terre from anywhere but the far north-west. It is a beautiful and very crowded day, and from Lucca it is a manageable hour and a half, but from the Val d'Orcia it is four hours each way and people still attempt it.

Rome and Venice. Both are day trips people plan and then abandon; a villa week is the wrong shape for either.

Three hill towns in one day. Two is the honest maximum, and one is usually better.

August in the cities. Florence and Siena in the second week of August are hot enough to be genuinely unpleasant by midday. See when to come and the month guides if the dates are still movable — late September is the same holiday in better weather.

Every enquiry is answered personally.

← All planning guides