Classic Italy: Rome, Florence & Venice: a 9-day road trip
Rome to Venice via Assisi, Siena, Florence, Pisa, Bologna — about 784 km of driving across Italy, suggested over 9 days.
See the attractions & sights guide for this route →
Stops on this route
Rome
Rome is Italy's capital and once the center of a vast empire, layering more than two and a half thousand years of history into a single city. Ancient ruins, Renaissance palaces, and Baroque fountains sit side by side, making it one of the most visited cities in the world and a living museum of Western civilization.
Assisi
Assisi is a rose-stone hill town in the heart of Umbria, the birthplace of St. Francis and St. Clare and one of Italy's great pilgrimage centres. Rising on the slopes of Monte Subasio above the Spoleto valley, its medieval lanes, Roman remains and Franciscan basilicas earned the whole town UNESCO World Heritage status in 2000, and it remains one of central Italy's most-visited hill towns as travellers increasingly favour Umbria over crowded Tuscany.
Siena
Siena is a medieval hill town in Tuscany, built around its famous shell-shaped Piazza del Campo and known for its brick-red skyline, Gothic cathedral, and the twice-yearly Palio horse race that pits the city's historic districts against each other. Its well-preserved medieval core earned it UNESCO World Heritage status.
Florence
Florence is the capital of Tuscany and the cradle of the Renaissance, where painters, sculptors, and architects like Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and Botticelli transformed Western art in the 14th to 16th centuries. Its historic center, dominated by the red-tiled dome of the cathedral, is dense with museums, churches, and palaces built by the ruling Medici family.
Pisa
Pisa is a Tuscan city on the Arno River, once a powerful maritime republic that rivaled Venice and Genoa before its decline in the 15th century. Today it is known worldwide for a single monument, the Leaning Tower, whose accidental tilt has made it one of the most photographed buildings on Earth.
Bologna
Bologna is the capital of Emilia-Romagna, a city of red-brick porticoes, medieval towers, and Europe's oldest university, founded in 1088. Nicknamed "la dotta, la grassa, la rossa" (the learned, the fat, the red) for its scholarship, cuisine, and terracotta rooftops, it is regarded as one of Italy's culinary capitals, birthplace of tortellini and ragù.
Venice
Venice is a city built on more than a hundred small islands in a lagoon on Italy's northeastern coast, its neighborhoods connected by canals instead of roads and its streets replaced by footbridges and waterways. Founded over a thousand years ago, it grew into a maritime and trading empire whose wealth built the ornate palaces, basilicas, and bridges that still line the Grand Canal.
Road charges and rules along the way
Italy
No motorway vignette or environmental sticker is required for passenger cars in Italy; motorways are free or distance-tolled.
Mandatory equipment: Headlights (daytime running lights or dipped beam), Safety vest (reflective, high-visibility), Warning triangle, Snow chains
Driving in Italy: full guide →
More routes in Italy
Plan this route with EuroDrive Scout — tolls, vignettes, ZTL alerts, fuel and parking →