Can anyone recommend a good, reliable, customer-oriented car rental agency in Rome? We plan to rent a car in Rome, drive to Venice, Florence, and back to Rome. There seems to be a lot of choices, so we're trying to narrow them down. Thanks!

I know Maggiore-National and Europcar rental car agencies, for I have often rented cars for my customers so from my point of view I can suggest to check them.

I am a strong advocate of renting cars for Europe travel - - and there are several good choices for starting your browsing, but this rental does not make all that much sense to me. Take the train to Venice, and rent the car there for your return trip to Rome. Or even better, plan your trip to make use of open jaw air travel (into one city back home out of a different city) and do not back trackk at all.

The best deals in car rental don't really involve a car rental agency at all, but rather a broker, like

www.autoeurope.com
www.kemwel.com

or

www.its-cars-hotels.com

They will put you with a major company like Avis, Budget, National, etc. at a price you will not get on your own. You might also try comparison shopping travelocity.com

Best wishes,

Rex

I would agree with all of Rex's notes, but I might have some different recommendations if I knew how long you plan to spend -- total time and time in each city. And it would also help to know if you plan to make overnight stops along the way or explore some of the villages enroute. Obviously, if you intend to make a rather long trip (say probably close to 3 weeks or more), and if you like to explore along the way, then you could rent a car at the more economical weekly rate, drive to Venice and drop it off, then re-rent another vehicle to return, also at the weekly rate. But if your trip is short and every minute counts, and you can only visit those 3 locations, then follow Rex's advice.

Bringing your message back "up to the top" since its your first post here ever.

We rented from Hertz via their Web site. Very easy to get set up and cheaper than calling in your reservation. After reserving the car, I called to schedule delivery. The car was brought to our hotel in Rome for an extra few bucks. It was on time, clean, new and full of gas which to me means it was reliable and customer-oriented.
As a side note, we paid 21 Euro for the one day we parked in Florence. So keep that in mind if you plan to spend much time there. I'm not sure how the rest of the cities on your list charge for safe parking.

don't know about the service but got an amazing rate of 50 euros per day at www.sky-tours.com