jessicasefcik

Hi there! Thanks so much for reading and hopefully replying to my question.

I am traveling with my parents to Tuscany in April and we are very excited. We will be renting a car and plan to visit the hilltop towns. Although my mom has back problems- she can walk, but not far (no more than 1 mile a day) and she has a hard time with hills. I know this will be an issue visiting the Tuscan hillside towns. I am hoping to get some very detailed advice about where is the best place to DROP her off (not park) and then we can park & meet her. A place as close to the center of town as possible with as few hills as possible is ideal (I know I might be asking something impossible.) If anyone knows the best areas to drop her off (that we can drive to) that I could mark on a map that would be soooo helpful. Thank you so much!

Here are the towns we are hoping to visit:
- Montepulciano
- Pienza
- Siena
- San Quirico d'Orcia
- San Gimignano

KTtravel

I have heard there is a large parking garage at the train station in Siena with escalators that you can take to get up to the town center. I hope someone else will be able to verify that this would work well.

Jean

maps.google.com is pretty accurate in showing parking lots. But be very careful how you drive to any parking lot. Keep your eyes peeled for signs (sometimes with lights) warning of "Zona Traffico Limitato" ahead and don't drive past the sign, at least not without reading the enforcement hours/days. If you drive into a town's ZTL (limited traffic zone) at the wrong time, you'll get a ticket in the mail after you get home. "Just dropping someone off" will not save you.

Signage can be simple:

https://l450v.alamy.com/450v/r0y3jx/...aly-r0y3jx.jpg

Or very 'wordy':

https://slowtraveltours.com/wp-conte...85-600x450.jpg

For Siena, I think it would be best to research the city's bus system. There is a parking lot at the train station and there are escalators, but it would still be, overall, about a mile's walk from the station to the Campo, and that's one way and the sights are spread out. Better to take a bus from the train station or from one of the other parking lots to near the Campo and explore as much as you can from there.

Pienza and San Quirico are both fairly flat and very small.

San Gimignano is mostly flat but a bit spread out. It might be a mile from one end to the other, so it would be good to prioritize what you want to see and pace yourselves accordingly.

Montepulciano has multiple parking lots. If you can find Parcheggio S. Donato (note that every street is one-way), the walk to the main piazza is very short. Depending on what else you wanted to see in the town, some streets are not flat.

joannyc

Have you considered possibly renting a wheelchair in Italy during your visit?

bilboburgler

Tricky
Montepulciano, there are car parks at the bottom outside the gates and there is a car park at the top but really that is a tough walk for anyone let alone a person with back pains. I'd really not try it

Great advice above about the other towns.

You could look at other more flat towns, for instance Buonconvento has a small ancient heart and the whole town is next to a river, very pretty and easily accessible. Or Colle di val d'Elsa which is really two towns, a hill town that you access from a car park at the top but can exist via a lift at the bottom into the new town (where you car could pick her up). A very interesting town with one street set aside for women to walk down who did not want to get involved in a 14cent civil war.

HappyTrvlr

When we were traveling in Tuscany last time, a friend asked us to keep an eye out for flat places to visit as he is handicapped. Bevagna
was the winner.