We chose Pistoia as the base for a two-day visit to Florence. This plan worked great.
Hosts Carlo and Lucia have a quirky compound located a short walk from the train station. We parked our rental car for the duration, and used the regional train service (frequent and cheap) to get to Florence.
(Ask Carlo about his motorcycle collection.) While C & L don't speak English or French and we don't speak Italian, communication was no problem: beyond Google, they use the new generation of on-the-fly translation devices. Each morning, they laid on a nice spread for breakfast, so our mornings did not start hungry.
Warm and personable couple, convenient location.