Graziella and Pat recommended Orvieto, which we visited in 2001 http://www.thetravelzine.com/italy0301_2.htm

You mentioned that you plan to use public transportation to get around. You might want to use http://www.fs-on-line.com/ for train timetables and this page http://www.lazzi.it/autolinee/index_e.htm for bus schedules.

Before or after Florence, Lucca is a wonderful town for a two or three day visit. On our trip in January, we stayed at Albergo San Martino http://www.albergosanmartino.it/ which we highly recommend.

As far as Fiesole is concerned, it's a short ride (about twenty minutes) on Bus #7 from Florence. We visited the main sites in the morning and had a fabulous lunch at Le Lance, via G. Mantellini 2/b, Tel: 055-599595 (please say hello to Riccardo), before heading back to Florence, where we spent a wonderful week at Hotel Giglio http://www.hotelgiglio.fi.it/ (owned by Marco Masselli, a Ziner).

Another day trip to consider from Florence is Pisa. We had the best unplanned experience of our trip meeting Pierrana and Giorgio, now Ziners, on the train. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheTravelzine/message/25733

We are currently working on the travelogue of that trip. Hope to post it on our site in a few weeks so please stay tuned.

Ciao for now, Linda