---
title: "Five Stops and One Car: Our Italy Road Trip from Venice to the Val d'Orcia This Autumn"
description: "Venice, Lake Como, the Cinque Terre, Florence and the Val d'Orcia: five stops on one Italy road trip this autumn."
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-09-15T11:45:10.038Z
updated: 2026-09-15T12:48:57.705Z
canonical: https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/italy-road-trip-venice-como-cinque-terre-florence-val-dorcia
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-breathtaking-view-of-rolling-hills-and-cypress-trees-in-tusc-27659795.jpg
categories: Destinations, Smart Travel
content_type: Guide
region: Italy
publication: Rich Travel Magazine
schema_type: Article
---
We parked the car on the edge of Venice on the first afternoon and did not sit in it again for three days.
The route runs sixteen nights from the top of the Adriatic to southern Tuscany: three nights in Venice, five on Lake Como, three in the Cinque Terre, four in Florence and one in the Val d'Orcia. Only two of the five stops need a car. Venice does not let one past Piazzale Roma, and both Como and the Cinque Terre are better served by their boats and trains. The car matters for the long transfers between stops and for the last night, where there is no railway to the places worth seeing. We flew into Venice and out of Florence, which means a one way hire and no doubling back.
[October and November](https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/autumn-rail-holidays-europe-two-windows) suit this route better than July does. Venice charges nothing to enter in the autumn, the Cinque Terre card drops to its post season price on 2 November, and Florence's big autumn exhibitions are open. Things also start shutting. One of the Bellagio gardens closes for the whole of November, the Cinque Terre boats stop around the start of that month, and from 15 November the winter tyre rules apply on signed roads.
## Venice in October: Three Nights Without the Car
*Photo: Photo: Helena Jankovičová Kováčová / Pexels*
The car goes into a garage before the bridge and stays there. At Piazzale Roma, the Autorimessa Comunale holds more than 2,000 cars, opens around the clock, and operators quote around €35 for 24 hours. Garage San Marco, on the same square, is quoted at €45 a day or from €25 for a five hour stop. Tronchetto, further out on its own island, is quoted at from €21 for 24 hours, with the People Mover running to Piazzale Roma for €1.50 a ride. We paid the higher rate at Piazzale Roma because it put us and the luggage at the top of the Grand Canal in one move.
There is nothing to pay to enter the city this autumn. The day visitor access fee ran on designated dates between 3 April and 26 July, at €5 booked four or more days ahead and €10 booked later, and no charging dates fall after July. The city has floated a higher peak day charge for 2027, but no calendar or price has been set, so an autumn arrival this year costs nothing beyond the garage.
> "Venice is best explored slowly on foot and by vaporetto, especially once the day-trippers begin disappearing in the evening."
> — Dr Marina Nani
A single vaporetto ticket, valid 75 minutes, is quoted at €9.50, which is the wrong way to buy three days of water transport. The [ACTV](https://actv.avmspa.it) tourist cards are quoted at €25 for one day, €35 for two and €45 for three, so the three day card pays for itself before lunch on day two. We used it mostly after five o'clock, when the tour groups are back at the coaches and the number 1 down the Grand Canal has seats in the open stern.
## Lake Como in October and November: One Base and the Ferries
*Photo: Photo: Sadettin Dogan / Pexels*
Como is about 280 km from Venice on the A4 and then the A8, which operators put at three to four hours before any stop. We chose one base for the five nights and left the driving there. [Navigazione Laghi](https://www.navigazionelaghi.it/) runs the boats across the centre of the lake between Bellagio, Varenna and Menaggio, and the crossings are short enough that a day can take in two of the three. The summer timetable ends in the autumn and the sailings thin out, so check the current sheet before you build a day around one particular departure.
[Villa Carlotta](https://www.villacarlotta.it) at Tremezzo is listed as open from 19 October to 8 November, 10am to 6pm with last tickets at 5pm, then on reduced hours of 10am to 4pm on the weekends of 14 and 15, 21 and 22, and 28 and 29 November. [Villa del Balbianello](https://fondoambiente.it/luoghi/villa-del-balbianello) stays open through November, 10am to 5pm with last entry at 4pm and the last guided tour at 3pm, before closing for the season and reopening in March 2027. [Villa Melzi](https://www.giardinidivillamelzi.it) at Bellagio runs its season from 21 March to 31 October, with a €10 ticket while it is open, and it is shut for the whole of November. A November stay built around Melzi will not work.
Five nights is longer than most itineraries give the lake. The days that worked best had one boat crossing and one garden in them, and nothing else planned. Local listings put the chestnut festival at Rovenna above Cernobbio in mid October, and the Sagra del Torchio grape pressing at Palanzo on the second Sunday of the month.
## Cinque Terre Hiking, Trains and Boats
*Photo: Photo: Gotta Be Worth It / Pexels*
Leave the car at La Spezia or Levanto. Both have paid parking near the station and direct trains into the villages, and Levanto is the quieter of the two with around 500 spaces. From there the Cinque Terre Express does the work, every 20 minutes in the main season between about 5am and 11.30pm, on a timetable that runs to 1 November before dropping to roughly two trains an hour. The five villages are minutes apart, which is why we have [made this stretch of coast by rail before](https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/backpack-two-days-by-rail-from-paris-to-the-cinque-terre-of-liguria).
The [park authority lists the Cinque Terre card](https://www.parconazionale5terre.it/cinque-terre-card.php) in bands. Through the main season to 1 November a one day train card runs from €22 in the low band, €29.50 in the middle and €35 on peak days. From 2 November the post season price applies: €17.30 for one day, €29 for two and €34 for three. A walking only trekking card is quoted at around €10 a day, rising to about €15 on the busiest days.
Three nights gives two full walking days and one slow one. The [Via dell'Amore](https://viadellamore.info), reopened in 2024, runs 9am to 9pm until 24 October and then 9am to 6pm from 26 October, on timed slots capped at 200 people every half hour, with access included in the card. The Monterosso to Vernazza and Vernazza to Corniglia paths were reported open in August, with one way walking imposed on busy days, though landslide risk means the park site is worth checking in the days before you go. The boats give the villages from the water and are the best hour of the trip, but the season ends around 1 November, so a November arrival will have the trains and the paths without the boats.
## A Florence Itinerary for Four Nights
*Photo: Photo: Bruna Santos / Pexels*
Florence is about 151 km from La Spezia, a little over an hour and a half. The car cannot come into the centre with you. The [ZTL](https://www.comune.fi.it) is split into sectors A, B, F, G and O, each with its own camera perimeter and its own hours, typically enforced Monday to Friday from 7.30am to 8pm and varying by sector and season. There is no tourist permit, and only hotels inside the zone can lodge a guest's number plate with the council in advance, so ask the hotel before you book rather than after you arrive. Fines run from around €91 if paid within five days to between €130 and €200 later, and one wrong turn past several cameras can bring several of them.
Park outside instead. Parterre at Piazza della Libertà is quoted at €2 an hour and €10 for the first day, €15 for the second and €20 a day after, which suits a four night stay. Porta al Prato is quoted at €20 a day after a first hour at €1.
The centre is small enough to cross on foot in half an hour, and there is a great deal more in it than the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio. The [Uffizi](https://www.uffizi.it/en/tickets) is €25 on the day and €29 booked ahead, with reduced entry at €2; [Palazzo Pitti](https://www.uffizi.it/en/pitti-palace) is €16 and €19, and a five day PassePartout across the sites is €40, or €58 with the Vasari Corridor added. Michelangelo's David at the [Accademia](http://www.galleriaaccademiafirenze.it) is €16 plus a €4 booking fee online, or €16 at the door if there is space.
Two of the four days went across the river to the Oltrarno, where the workshops and the quieter squares are. Autumn adds two exhibitions: Broken: The Power of the Fragment at Palazzo Strozzi, from 25 September to 24 January, and Florence and Europe: Arts of the Eighteenth Century across the Uffizi and Pitti, to 20 November. We kept one evening with nothing booked at all.
## Val d'Orcia Road Trip: One Night in Southern Tuscany
*Photo: Photo: Duc Tinh Ngo / Pexels*
Pienza sits about 117 km south of Florence, a little under an hour and forty minutes away. Bagno Vignoni is about 128 km and much the same time. Montalcino is between 109 and 137 km depending on the road you take, at around an hour and three quarters. Once you are down there the distances collapse: Bagno Vignoni to Pienza is 9 km and sixteen minutes.
The Val d'Orcia has been on the UNESCO list since 2004, and the listing covers Pienza, Montalcino, San Quirico d'Orcia, Castiglione d'Orcia and Radicofani. Pienza is the small planned town on the ridge, Montalcino is [the wine town on the hill opposite](https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/happy-table-what-to-eat-at-every-stop-on-our-italy-road-trip), and [the cypress roads that everyone photographs run between San Quirico and Monticchiello](https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/what-a-great-time-to-be-alive-three-lessons-from-sixteen-nights-on-the-road-in-italy). In the middle of Bagno Vignoni, where a village square would normally be, there is a thermal basin 49 metres by 29 metres. Its origins are medieval and its present form is largely sixteenth century, though the hot water has been used since Etruscan and Roman times and a Roman dedication survives on the site. The village sits on the Via Francigena, and Pope Pius II, Catherine of Siena and Lorenzo de' Medici are all said to have stopped here.
One night is enough to see the three towns and drive the roads between them. [October in the province of Siena](https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/italy-anti-inflammatory-season-new-olive-oil-october) gives highs of around 19.5 to 21°C and lows around 10°C, with roughly eleven wet days in the month and about six and a half hours of sun a day, so the light on those roads is low and long by four in the afternoon. If your last night falls after 15 November, the car needs winter tyres or chains for the roads signed for them.
## Driving in Italy This Autumn
*Photo: Photo: Elia Pinzin / Pexels*
A UK licence is legally sufficient in Italy, but hire companies often ask for an International Driving Permit anyway, and the Post Office issues one for £5.50 for either one or three years. Readers on a US licence do need one by law.
Almost every historic centre on this route has a ZTL, the cameras are automatic, and the fine arrives months later through the hire company with an administration charge on top. Give the hotel your number plate if it sits inside a zone and can lodge it, and otherwise park outside the walls and walk.
Dipped headlights are compulsory at all times on the [autostrade](https://www.autostrade.it) and outside built up areas, and that is camera enforced too. Tolls work on a closed ticket system at about €9 per 100 km for a standard car, on rates set in January. From 15 November until 15 April, winter tyres marked M+S or 3PMSF are required on signed sections, or chains carried in the car, with some roads signed from 1 November; the fine reaches €318 with licence points and the car can be held. Ask the hire company at the counter what the vehicle is fitted with. On one way hire there is no standard Italian drop charge, but it varies by company, so get it in the quote rather than at the desk.
## The Route by Train
The northern half of this route works without a car. Milan to Venice takes two and a quarter to two and a half hours on [Frecciarossa](https://www.trenitalia.com) or [Italo](https://www.italotreno.com), with departures around every half hour and advance fares from about €10. The Cinque Terre Express covers all five villages plus La Spezia and Levanto every 20 minutes while the main season timetable runs, to 1 November. The Como and Liguria legs route through Milano Centrale, so they cost a change rather than a day. London to Venice is about two hours in the air on several carriers, and the return can go from Florence or, with more choice, from Pisa. There is no station at Bagno Vignoni and no bus worth planning a day around, so a car free version of this trip stops at Florence.
## FAQ
**Q: How many days do you need in Cinque Terre?**
Three nights, as on this route, gives two full days of walking and one slower one, which is enough to reach all five villages and still sit still for an afternoon. Two nights works if you only want the train and one path. Anything longer is really a beach holiday, and by late autumn the boats have stopped.
**Q: Is it a good idea to rent a car in Italy?**
For this route, yes, but not for all of it. The car is dead weight in Venice, on Lake Como and in the Cinque Terre, where it sits in a garage costing money while you use boats and trains. It earns its keep on the long transfers and on the last night in the Val d'Orcia, where Pienza, Montalcino and Bagno Vignoni are not sensibly reachable any other way. The risk to watch is the ZTL camera in every historic centre, which is why the car stays outside the walls.
**Q: Is Venice worth visiting in October?**
October is the better month. There is no access fee to pay in the autumn, the day visitor crowds thin after five o'clock, and a three day vaporetto card at the quoted €45 makes the evenings on the water cheap. The weather is cooler and wetter than the summer, which matters less in a city crossed on foot.