I have been wanting to take my mom to Tuscany for a while. We are both red wine drinkers and love Italian food.  My mom was a travel agent and she's been to Italy before.  I have been at least 4 times for a total of about 9 weeks.  I drove from Venice to Rome on one of the trips.  One of the trips I flew into Pisa, I want to do that again.

The plan so far is to meet up with mom at Heathrow in the UK (we live in different countries) and then fly together to Pisa, Italy.  Pisa is a wonderful place to fly into, the airport is small and near the center of town, so we will be able to see the leaning tower as we land.  The train goes right into the airport and it's a short distance into town. We'll spend the first night there. 

Then we'll take the train into Florence for a few nights.  I want to see David.  Then we'll rent a car and basically drive up to Venice, spending 6 nights on the road. I want to go back to Poppi, one of my favourite places in the world. I have a picture of the castle in my kitchen.  I also want to go to San Marino so we'll spend a few nights there.  Apparently you can pay to get a stamp in our passports.  

I made a quick budget, with overestimating everything.

Airfare into Pisa and out of Venice for 2  $2200, Trains & boats - $100, Hotel 10 nights  $1500 (this is a lot higher than I usually do but it's mom and I want to stay in nice places), Car $50/day  6 days $300, Gas  $100 (this is a guess), Food 10 days  $1000 (this is also higher than I usually estimate so we can go to some nice restaurants, mom loves that kind of thing. Ron and I will be doing 'picnic by the Sienne with wine and cheese in Paris in the fall). Museums, etc  $200 (also a guess. I do want to see David in Florence. And I think there might be some funicular rides we go on). 

Total estimate:  $5,400

This will be a pretty awesome trip that I will have memories for for a lifetime. 

If you wanted to do this trip a lot cheaper you could not rent a car and visit towns you can get to by train.  Flying to Pisa may cost a bit more than flying to Rome but Rome will cost a lot more in hotels and trains and time and frustration.  Pisa and Venice have small airports which are always nicer to fly out of.   Venice is odd because you take a boat into town, but both airports have easy to find and navigate public transportation. 

Other ways to make the trip less expensive is to stay in less expensive lodging.  Budgeting $100 a night should let you stay in some pretty nice places.  There are hostels and low end hotels for $30 a night

$100 a day for food is a lot, it will allow us to eat several meals in restaurants.  I'm budgeting $40 a day for my budget trip in the fall.  Italy has a lot of inexpensive fixed price bistros where you only get a few choices of food but it's wonderful.  Local wine is inexpensive.

I still have to flesh out all the details of the trip but I have started my savings account and figured out I need to put in about $350 a month for this trip if I"m going to go in the fall of next year.  I currently have savings accounts for my trip to Europe in Sept of this year, and to Iceland in the spring of next year.