Tuscan wineries open in January?

What are some things to do or interesting activities that don’t involve the beach and seaside towns? Looking for family/kid friendly activities - farm visits, sculpture gardens, monuments or museums (outside Genoa), wineries, anything else really.

Appreciate suggestions

My husband and I visited Syracusa, Ortigia, and Catania a few years ago and promised we would return some day, and we are scheduled for 2 weeks in October! Can't wait!

We are interested in history, wine, biking, scenery, and local flavor. We do not want to be changing hotels every other day, so let me lay out what we are thinking and then get some feedback.

3-4 nights in Trapani: Fly into Palermo, rent a car at the airport, and drive to Trapani. If we aren't to tired we will detour to Segeste on the way. We would like to take the cable car to Erice, bike on Favignana, and then maybe visit salt flats.

Day 4: We were thinking that if we got up early we could make it to Agrigento, visit the ruins, and then continue on to Ragusa. If that's too much we would spend a night in Agrigento.

3-4 nights in Ragusa: We originally thought we would like to rent ebikes and visit wineries and other towns like we did in southern France and Tuscany, but as I'm researching I am wondering if that's a thing in that area. I couldn't find bike rental places in Ragusa and don't see any vineyards in that area either. (I did find a map that shows vineyards north of Vittoria and Comiso.)

3-4 nights in Palermo: We would do a day trip to Monreale cathedral, a day trip to Cefalu by train, and a day seeing the sights of Palermo.

Here are my questions:

1) Should we skip the Ragusa area and stay to the west, and if so, what should we do with those days? Should we stay in Vittorio or Comiso and try to rent bikes and visit those area wineries? Is that a pretty area? (I love the pics I've seen of Ragusa and Modica.)

2) Is there an area that has biking options (single day rides vs. multiple days). Ideally we would like to visit wineries on these rides, but scenery is a good incentive, too.

3) In my itinerary above I still have a few nights unaccounted for. Should I add another place, like Cefalu to the itinerary, or a place on the southern coast, or Marsalla, or should I just add the days to the places we are already staying?

4) We thought about visiting the Villa Romana del Casale, but it's about 2 hours north of Agrigento so not really on the way to any place unless we stayed in that area (Enna?) for a day or 2. Thoughts on that?

5) We also thought of staying overnight on Favignana to have 2 days of biking. Is that too much time allocated to see the island?

I will stop there. Vagabonda and others were so helpful on our last trip that I'm hoping for some common sense wisdom again this time. Thanks in advance!!

Kim

Hello,

My husband and I want to celebrate our 15th yr anniv and planning on going to Italy. We are both vaccinated. Is it safe to travel there now? If so would you say a lot of the wineries up north are open. We can't decide if we want to go up north to tuscany, florence, lake como, cinque terre, etc or should we do naples and amalfi coast. Our dates are Oct 1-9. Is the weather warm enough for Amalfi coast? I just don't know if everything is open and worth the trip? Any guidance is appreciated. Thank you!

Please help me with this idea. Based on a friends recommendation that did this on their own many many years ago I would like to do the following and would appreciate some other input from people that have been there recently. I would first need to hire a reasonably priced driver so that's my first need. We (husband and I) would like to go to Antinori nel Chianti Classico and also Tenuta Torciano and San Gimignano and return to Florence. What are your thoughts and suggestions. Thank you so much!

I am in the process of planning a vacation for my self and 2 adult daughters. We all have received the COVID vaccine. We would like to travel to the south of Italy, Will tourist attractions be open? can we travel freely from one province to another? Are restaurants open?

I will also be visiting my elderly aunt while there, so as of now we meet the criteria for entry into Italy.

Hello, my husband and I (both fully vaccinated) will be in Switzerland for one month (Sept. 21-October 21). We are thinking of extending our trip for 1-2 weeks and visiting Italy because we end up in Lugano, and would be able to take the train to Italy. (We will need to return to Zurich for our flight home, so as to avoid change fees.)

We have been to Italy several times, but have never done anything other than the main cities and tourist areas. We did visit Cinque Terre from Florence on one trip, and did the hike from village to village, and we have visited Lake Como twice, but only on day trips. We also did a vacation in Italy one time that included the Dolomites, Verona and Sienna. We love nature, hiking, quaint villages, pretty beaches, biking. We have never done the countryside in Italy (Tuscany area), seen Portofino or Genoa. Based on when we'd be there (late October), and the fact that we will need to get back to Zurich for our flight home, we don't want to travel as far south as the Amalfi Coast, so we'd appreciate any suggestions for places to visit for 1-2 weeks that are more north. We prefer being able to use public transportation, but are open to car rental, if need be. Really appreciator any advice/suggestions!

I'm interested in taking a full day bus tour from Siena or Florence to the Italian countryside villages and then walking around on my own. I'm not interested in wine tours or meals. What are my best tour options for visiting 3 or 4 villages in a day via bus?

Help! My granddaughter is studying in Florence from August -December 15th. My husband and I are taking this opportunity to visit her and travel some throughout Italy. I have studied and have an itinerary of places to visit from Rome to the Dolomites. We love views and sightseeing. I can not decide if it’s best to go the first two weeks in October or the first two weeks in December when all the Christmas markets are open. My main concern is weather….mainly rain. Decided on December but read several places it can rain a lot in December. First time visiting Italy. Thanks for any input!

I would appreciate views from the wise heads on this site, on a question regarding the start of quarantine after reaching Italy by car from the UK.

A British tourist enters Italy via France and on DAY 1 of travel stays overnight in Troyes.

The next day, DAY 2 of travel, the tourist drives from Troyes and enters Italy via the Mont Blanc tunnel. Tourist stays overnight in Cormayeur. Next day, on DAY 3 of travel the tourist drives direct from Courmayeur to Lucca and does not stop. Tourist then enters own Italian property for quarantine.

Question: At what point can quarantine be said to have started? There is information on social media which suggests that if Tourist emails digitalised local form to Lucca region health authorities immediately upon entering Italy that quarantine can start then, although an overnight stay in hotel in Courmayeur takes place. Or, does quarantine start the next day when Tourist drives from Courmayeur to Lucca and enters property, and if so is Travel Day 3 deemed to be the first completed day of quarantine?

Obviously, this all has some bearing on when quarantine can be said to be completed.

We are a group of 6 planning to visit in mid September for a couple of weeks. Where would be a good base to stay? We would like some nightlife, bars and restaurants near the beaches. Many thanks