These are not programmes copied from a guidebook. They are days built around the running times of an eight-metre vehicle on Tuscan roads — including stops, the driver's compulsory breaks, and the minutes it takes thirty people to board.
It is the most common mistake when planning a group day: you check the satnav, read "40 minutes", and build the day on that number. Then the group reaches the winery late, lunch slips, and you drive home in the dark.
On a Tuscan back road, through bends and villages, a coach averages 45-50 km/h where a car does 70. But the real difference is not speed:
How we work. When you send us a programme, we check it against real timings before quoting. If it does not hold, we say so and suggest how to fix it — move a stop, start earlier, or split the group. We would rather tell you at the quote stage than on the day.
The classic: two villages, one winery, lunch. The group sleeps in Florence and returns in the evening.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 08:45 | Boarding at the designated coach bay. Not outside the hotel: in central Florence coaches load at authorised points only. |
| 09:00 | Departure for Chianti along the SR222, the Chiantigiana. |
| 10:00 | Greve in Chianti — 32 km, one hour. A car would take forty minutes. |
| 10:15 – 11:00 | Piazza Matteotti, the butcher, the market if it is Saturday. |
| 11:20 | Panzano — 10 km of bends, twenty minutes. |
| 11:30 – 12:45 | Winery visit and tasting. |
| 13:00 – 14:45 | Lunch, at the winery or in the village. |
| 15:20 | Castellina in Chianti — 18 km, thirty-five minutes. |
| 16:30 | Departure for Florence. |
| 17:45 | Back. Three hours of driving in total: the driver stays inside every limit and the day holds together. |
What does not fit. Adding Siena to this day. From Castellina it is another 40 minutes, plus the return: you finish after 8 p.m. and Siena gets a forty-minute stop, which is not worth the drive. Siena deserves its own day.
A group landing at Pisa and staying in a villa in Chianti. The first day is always underestimated.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 14:30 | Landing. |
| 15:15 | Meeting point at arrivals. Disembarking, controls and baggage take three quarters of an hour: anyone budgeting fifteen minutes is always wrong. |
| 15:30 | Departure. The vehicle waits in the airport coach area; the entry fee is already in the quote. |
| 17:15 | Arrival at the villa — 105 km, one hour forty-five. |
What we check first. The last kilometre. Many Tuscan villas are reached by a narrow gravel road, with a gate an eight-metre vehicle cannot turn into. We look at the satellite view before confirming, and if it does not fit we say so straight away: we drop off nearby, or you need two minibuses instead of one coach.
Guests are spread across hotels and houses, the ceremony is in one place and the reception in another, and it ends in the small hours. It is the hardest service to put on a timetable.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 15:00 – 15:40 | Pick-ups, in road order rather than by importance: the run is built on geography, not on head counts. |
| 16:00 | Arrival at the ceremony, with twenty minutes in hand. |
| 17:45 | Transfer to the reception venue. |
| 18:10 | Arrival. The vehicle stays at your disposal. |
| 00:30 | First run home, for the early leavers. |
| 02:00 | Second run home. |
Two things that decide everything. First: if the last run is after 1 a.m. and the depot is far, the driver cannot drive back — rest hours are compulsory. A bed nearby has to be arranged, and it must be raised at the quote stage, not the week before.
Second: many historic villages are closed to coaches around the clock. In Certaldo Alto, for instance, guests are not collected at their door: they board at the foot of the funicular, two minutes below the walls. These details have to reach the guests in advance, or on the day somebody waits in the wrong place.
Vehicle and driver stay with the group. It is the arrangement that gives the most, because you avoid the empty runs.
| Day | Programme |
|---|---|
| One | Florence. Drop-off at the coach point, the day on foot in the centre, pick-up in the afternoon. The vehicle does not stay in the city: coach parking is regulated and it is better to send it back. |
| Two | Siena in the morning — an hour and a quarter from Chianti — and San Gimignano in the afternoon. Here too coaches stop at the check point outside the walls, ten minutes' walk from the centre. |
| Three | Val d'Orcia: Montalcino, Pienza, the white cypress roads. Two hours fifteen on the way out, so an early start and back by 6 p.m. at the latest. |
Over three consecutive days the daily cost comes down, because the vehicle stays in the area instead of returning to the depot each evening.
Yes. Tell us how many you are, how many days you have and what interests you — wine, art, the coast, hill towns — and we send a proposal with the timings already checked. Then we adjust it together until it works.
No, and we do not promise it. The driver knows the roads, the stopping points and the timings, and nobody should take that for granted. Guided visits need a licensed guide: we can point you to one, but you book it.
Within the driving-hours limits, yes. An extra stop or a return half an hour later can be handled. What cannot be done is exceeding the driver's hours: those are not negotiable and we will say so at the time.
Up to 25+1+1 in the minibus, up to 51+1 in the grand tourer coach. For larger groups we coordinate several vehicles, with the timings built together.
We send the programme back with checked timings and a written price, within two hours. No obligation.