Car rental leaving Rome
 

We are spending 4 days in Rome and then a week and a half in Tuscany. We are planning on renting a car on the way out of Rome and driving around Tuscany. Where is the best place to rent on the way out of Rome? Should we go back to the airport or should we rent at a stand alone in Rome? We are planning on returning the car after our 10 days in Tuscany, spending one more night in Rome and flying back out of Rome. My husband and I both drive a manual at home, so that's not an issue of trying to find an automatic.
Thank you in advance for any feedback!

You need to identify an office that is does not require you to enter a pedestrian only zone to get to the main highway out of town heading north. I would google and map the offices to see which is most convenient.

It's fairly easy to get out of Rome from the auto rental locations on Via Giolitti, on the northern side of Termini station. It would be difficult to stray into a ZTL from there. They also have a good selection of cars, and it's easy to get to with public transportation. I wouldn't rent from the airport, because it's on the opposite side of the city from Tuscany.

Many people going to Tuscany prefer to take the train to Orvieto or Chiusi and rent their cars there. The advantage is that you're well away from city traffic by the time you pick up the car. The disadvantage is that the choice of cars is more restricted (lack of automatic transmissions, which won't affect you, being one of the biggest). They also have limited hours, closing for several hours at midday, and also on Sundays. Finally, AutoEurope no longer offers rentals at Orvieto because of customer complaints about an agency there.

We picked up our car in Rome on a Sunday morning so not much traffic. What day are you leaving Rome?

Have you considered picking up your car at Fiumicino Airport, which has easy access to Tuscany via the E80 or GRA to A1, spend 11 nights in Tuscany, skip Rome, drive directly back to the airport, drop off the car and leave?

There are tons of places you can rent from close to Termini but if you're not comfortable with driving in Rome, ZTL is the least of your worries. There is lots of traffic and aggressive driving, and things will only get worse if you're traveling around Jubileo and the Christmas/New Years holiday.

Don't forget you'll need an international driver's license or official translated copy of your license.

One idea would be just take the train (about 15Euros) up to Chiusi near Siena. In Chiusi you'll find Hertz, Europcar (Alamo/National) and Sixt Car Rental. Siena was recently voted one of the top cities in the world by readers of Conde Nast, you may want to spend a night or two. Or three.

The GRA can be a big parking lot at rush hours, or at any time if there's an accident. That's one reason why, as I said above, I'd prefer to pick up the car on the northern side of the city.

I always take the train to Chiusi and pick up the car there for a driving holiday in Umbria or Tuscany. WAY more relaxing than trying to get out of Rome.

Thank you all so much! We are leaving Rome on a Wednesday. I know driving in Rome is not ideal....but if my we have to do it for a morning just to get out we can. My husband drives in major cities all the time.
I had thought of just dropping the car off on Saturday back in Rome and then flying back from there. But the tickets I was looking at have us leaving fairly early and I dont want to stress about getting to the airport in time.
My husband and I have printed our international drivers license applications and are going to go to a AAA office to have them processed!
I will look into these suggestions and figure out what works best!

If you search for car rentals on Autoeurope, you can see the addresses of the car offices. We chose one that suited us for proximity to the GRA and ease of access from our flat.

We were on the west side of the Centro Storico, so took a bus to the Hertz office on via Gregorio VII, just west of the Vatican.

Not hard to get from there to the GRA. But as others note, the GRA can have its own challenges....

We dropped off the car at FCO airport. (IME, Hertz doesn't charge a drop off fee.) You might drop off the car outside Rome and take the train into the city.