enewell

We will be driving from Castellina in Chianti to return our car at the Florence Airport on a Saturday morning. I've read that the rental locations have moved to an area away from the terminal that is difficult to locate and that the roads in the area are confusing to navigate.

If you have any recent experience with this I would love to hear about it. Any tips would also be appreciated.

sandralist

You definitely want to have plotted out your route beforehand using the address on your booking + a google map -- or, if you get confused while on the road, follow the signs to the airport proper, and from there you will find more signs to the rental parking lots. But use old information you find on the internet.

If you have a plane to catch, you might want to leave time to get lost and also waiting time at the drop off area. It's a busy car rental spot, with lots of people dropping off cars.

wesleymarsh

http://www.slowtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67630

At the end of this thread, I posted links to 2 custom made maps for the car rental parking lot. There are many complaints that signage is too small to see or doesn't exist. You really need to study the route options before you go. There's a lot of information on that thread about the various routes.

sandralist

Sorry! Just noticed my typo. I should have typed DON'T use old information on the internet (wesleymarsh's link is fine since it is less than 2 months old)

ElendilPickle

Oh, my word. Trying to return our rental car in Florence in May was one of the most stressful parts of our trip. Our GPS's maps were out of date, and we were directed to a location sort of near the airport where Hertz had once had an office.

Eventually, we got to the airport, and drove around in circles for what seemed like a long time before we eventually found the entrance to the rental car dropoff.

Lee Ann

enewell

Thank you for all the information. I am still in a quandry as to whether it will be better to choose another place to return the car. We will be heading to Florence for a 4 night stay afterwards, so I had believed it was simplest to get rid of the car there, at the airport, and then taxi to our hotel.

But now I'm wondering if I should consider returning it in Siena, closest to our location in Chianti, or even in Arezzo or Chiusi, where we are picking it up. All of these options would involve a 1-2 hour drive, returning the car, and then taking a train/bus to Florence, then a taxi to hotel.

The car returns in Siena are just outside the walls, near the train station. We had a nightmare experience driving around Siena some years ago, so I am less than enthusiastic about this.

Any thoughts on how you would arrange this?

Thanks again!

vincenzo32951

If the dropoff in Siena is convenient, that's not a bad idea. You can then catch the express bus to Florence. However, it would seem that with a little planning and preparation, returning the car to the airport shouldn't be terrible.

I've found, for some reason, that compared to the US, rental-return procedures at airports in Europe are still in the last century.

wesleymarsh

If I were going to Florence from Tuscany, then I would drop the car at the airport and take a short taxi ride to the city center. I don't see an alternative that is as easy and simple as that one.

macanimals

Reduce your stress and return the car to the Florence airport making a simple taxi ride downtown afterward. If you have access to this website, you have the ability to research and preview your route--its not that difficult and you have no real time deadlines i.e. flight to catch.
The car rental return is just outside the airport parking lots--easy peasy.