If you’re staying in or living in Florence, try some of these easy day trips in Italy’s most beautiful region: Under the Tuscan Sun [Firenze, Toscana, Italia]

• Pisa & Lucca: both can be done in an afternoon, only an hour train ride to the leaning tower and amazing Duomo, from the train station take the red bus right to the tower, afterwards take a 20 minute train ride to Lucca, from the train station go a little bit to the left to find the entrance into the walled city and right through the entrance on the left is a shop where you can rent bikes and ride along the walls all around the city and then through the streets, great place to get gelato as well
• Siena: beautiful city with very nice Duomo
• San Gimingiano: another beautiful city where you can climb towers for great views
• Bologna: beautiful city, not too far, known for best food in Italy
• Venice: everyone knows the city on water and the gondola rides and it’s only a couple of hours away by train so it can be done in a day if you leave early but if you want to make a week-end of it they have two really cool casinos
• Livorno: 2^nd biggest sea port in Italy, pretty close, great seafood
• Greve in Chianti: take a sita bus from the sita bus station next to Santa Maria Nouvella train station to Greve in Chianti which is a beautiful little town and then grab a taxi to get to Badia a Passignano for a tour (25 EUR) where they take you across the street to the vineyard and teach you about different kinds of wines, then down to the wine cellar below the ancient castle where monks used to make wine, then up to the restaurant to taste 4 different wines; the tour runs every day in the morning and at 3:30 in the afternoon but you need to make a reservation (039 055-807-1278)
• Arezzo & Cortona: two beautiful Etruscan cities high up on hills with amazing views of the countryside, Arezzo also has a plethora of very old and beautiful churches
• Montepulciano: another hilltop Etruscan town, very beautiful and known for having some of the best wine in Italy, you can do wine tasting all over the town but I recommend Cantina del Redi