Italy in October for a week - recommendations please?

[sweetkitty]

For various reasons we aren’t able to have a Summer holiday so are thinking about Italy in October half term (got to be school holidays I’m a teacher). We are thinking a week Sat to Sat and I want to fly to Pisa and visit a small town near there for 1 night then go to Rome for a few nights then where else maybe Florence or Venice not sure. Will have teen DC with us. Have heard the Italian trains are fab, fast and cheap so plan on using them.

Anyone got any recommendations?

Assuming that you fly low cost or similar, which includes BA short haul these days, it would make sense to use different arrival and departure airports. For eg fly to Venice then back from Rome stopping in Tuscany between them. The cities will be as normal but resort areas will largely have shut up by October.
A few notes on trains. I travelled by train from Rome to Milan in March using the Frecciarossa which is Trenitalia's blue ribbon route. The experience was ok but maybe not as fabulous as you imagine.
Rome - Milan took 3:40 hours for 400 miles or so so not significantly faster the mainline express in the UK. Ontime departure and slightly late arrival.
Cost was euro 120 booked in advance so a bit cheaper than equivalent UK trip. I booked business class which was a fairly small premium over standard. Comfortable seats and a 2-1 configuration. rather than 2-2. Luggage space was tight and a 07:00 am departure pretty full.
The vaunted snack box was pretty disappointing a 25cl bottle of water a cookie and a biscuit. Staff came around serving an frankly undrinkable expresso.
A large part of the journey was in cuttings and tunnels so you didn't see much of the country. going in and out of Florence all I saw was some scruffy suburbs and industrial areas.

Trains are great.

Download the Trenitalia app and sign up for an account and you'll start getting lots of offers. Last year I travelled from Innsbruck down to Puglia by train, 2 of us, "premium" class, which is a class between first and bogstandard (there was an offer at the time) for €70.

For your itinerary, I'd fly into Pisa, you don't need to stay there really, it can be done in a day/afternoon. Use Florence as a hub to visit Siena, Pisa, San Gimignano etc, (all of these on local regionale trains would be as cheap as chips) then down to Rome. You've got Intercity, Rossa, and Argento trains, Intercity are the "ordinary" long distance and stop more often. Then Rossa, then Argento.

Frecciarossa Florence-Rome takes about 90 minutes and is showing €27 for October.