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Drive time

10 stops that turn the Rome to Florence drive into three days

Comuni where the drive to Rome plus the drive to Florence stays under five and a half hours combined, so the detour off the A1 costs little. 10 stops shown, ordered from the Rome end to the Florence end.

Driven direct, Rome to Florence takes about three hours and teaches you nothing. Stretched over three days, the same route crosses the Tiber valley, southern Umbria and the Val di Chiana, some of the oldest continuously inhabited country in Italy.

These stops keep the combined drive to both cities under five and a half hours, so the detours cost little. Ordered from the Rome end to the Florence end; pick three, sleep in two.

  1. 1.Cerveteri55 min from Rome, 234 min to FlorenceRoma · LazioAn Etruscan capital seven kilometers inland from the Tyrrhenian coast, with the Banditaccia necropolis holding 1,000 tombs in the largest ancient cemetery in the Mediterranean.
  2. 2.Castelnuovo di Porto72 min from Rome, 237 min to FlorenceRoma · LazioA tufa-ridge borgo twenty-five kilometers north of Rome inside the Parco di Veio, dominated by the Rocca Colonna above the Tiber valley.
  3. 3.Tarquinia82 min from Rome, 202 min to FlorenceViterbo · LazioAn Etruscan capital on a Maremma ridge whose 6,000 rock-cut tombs at Monterozzi hold the largest body of pre-Roman painting in the Mediterranean.
  4. 4.Sutri87 min from Rome, 237 min to FlorenceViterbo · LazioAn Etruscan and Roman town on a tuff spur, with a rock-cut amphitheater carved straight from the volcanic stone of the Cimini.
  5. 5.Magliano Sabina97 min from Rome, 211 min to FlorenceRieti · LazioA 222-meter Sabine town on a Tiber terrace facing Monte Soratte, cathedral seat of the Sabina diocese on the Lazio-Umbria border.

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  1. 6.Casperia99 min from Rome, 231 min to FlorenceRieti · LazioA Sabina hill village named Aspra in Virgil's Aeneid, called that until 1947, ringed by walls from 1282 and Sabina DOP olive groves below.
  2. 7.Narni105 min from Rome, 209 min to FlorenceTerni · UmbriaItaly's geographical centre and the etymological 'Narnia' — a 17,900-resident hilltop town on a travertine outcrop above the Nera valley, with the Rocca Albornoz papal fortress, a 30m Roman arch of the Ponte d'Augusto, a hidden underground complex containing a 13th-c Inquisition cell with original prisoner graffiti, and the documented Latin name (Narnia) that C.S. Lewis lifted for his fictional kingdom.
  3. 8.Bassano in Teverina106 min from Rome, 210 min to FlorenceViterbo · LazioA tufa-spur borgo of 1,260 above the Tiber valley between Lazio and Umbria, with a clock tower that hides an eleventh-century animated bell tower.
  4. 9.CapalbioCapalbio113 min from Rome, 171 min to FlorenceGrosseto · TuscanyA walled hilltop borgo at 217 meters in the southern Maremma, donated to the Abbey of Tre Fontane by Charlemagne and home of Niki de Saint Phalle's Tarot Garden.
  5. 10.Bomarzo114 min from Rome, 204 min to FlorenceViterbo · LazioThe Tuscia village below the Sacro Bosco, the 16th-century stone-monster garden built by a grieving condottiero for his dead wife.

We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.

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