My partner and I are set to go to Italy for our honeymoon come September. We have quite the aggressive schedule planned out for ourselves starting in Geneva (we want to travel across the Alps!) and ending in Rome.

Has anyone ever driven across Italy? Can you tell me a bit about your experience and whether it was worth it? We figure it'll save us time and that it'll give us a good opportunity to see the country side. We've looked into some prices and car rental seems to be about $1000.00 in total for the 3 weeks we're going not including gas. I keep telling my partner that it may be cheaper to go train...any suggestions?

Our basic itinerary is this:

Geneva
Turin
Bellagio, Lake Como
Verona
Cinqueterra (maybe?)
Parma
Bologna
Florence
Isle di Capri, Pompeii (maybe?)
Amalfi Coast
Rome

Like I said, very ambitious!!! Please tell us what you think!! I would welcome any suggestions. This is the first time for me on a travel forum and I would love some input! Thanks!

That sounds more like down rather than across

Sorry...That's what I meant!! Driving down Italy...I'm too used to saying "driving across..." I guess.

I love driving in Italy so I do not want to discourage you if a driving tour is what you want, but here are two things that come to mind:

Have you found a car rental company that allows drop-off in a different country at reasonable cost?

You have some cities in your mix, places where a car would be a pain. Would you avoid the cities if you have a car, or ditch the car mid-trip and continue to the cities (Florence and Rome especially) by train?

Eleven places in three weeks are far too many. Even if you drive (see below), you lose a half-day every time you move.
Consider eliminating Cinque Terre or Amalfi Coast; the two are fairly similar from the point of view of landscape. The Cinque Terre are small villages; the towns on the Amalfi Coast are mostly upscale resorts. You can probably eliminate Parma or Bologna.

Now as to driving: You cannot drive in the historic centers of most Italian towns, and definitely not in Bologna, Florence and Rome. So in addition to rental, you have to pay expensive parking *and* you have to hassle with getting from the parking lot or garage to where you are staying.

Trains in Italy are fast, comfortable and quite inexpensive. With very few exceptions - the hill towns of Tuscany or Umbria, for example - they will take you everywhere a car will.

Except for Capri (ferry) and the Amalfi Coast (drive or bus), the train will take you everywhere you have listed. Also, train to Varenna and ferry to Bellagio. I believe more cheaply but, to which you allude, on someone else's schedule. Also, are you ok with manual transmission? You'll pay more for automatic shift I'm told.

If your timeframe is around 2 weeks, I'd drive. More than that, take a look at the train schedules online. Check the price for a rail pass since you have such a full itinerary.

Other posters will go into more detail. You can search for this topic as well. Good luck and congrats!

Add road tolls to your calculation, which sum up on the freeways of Italy.

Wow, thanks! I hadn't thought of the pain it would be in historic centers. That will be something I have to look into. I suppose we could rent a car for a portion of the trip where it wouldn't be a pain. I do remember seeing cars in Rome and Florence though (I've been to these 2 cities before). Is it just certain portions of the city you're not allowed to drive through?

My partner is a pretty competent driver. We were in Nairobi, Kenya for 6 months and had a vehicle there and no problems (manual, too!). I guess the concern with driving part of the way and training the other part is that we would be wasting time dropping off and picking up cars.

kayd, you said you love to drive Italy? Is it worth the hassle in your opinion??

Oh, and thanks to TDudette for the congratulations!

A good point about drop off costs in a second country. Maybe train to Italy and rent your car there, drop it in the town before Rome and train to Rome.

My hub and I went to 13 towns on a 2-week trip and didn't feel deprived. We had a pass and 3 base cities. Every morning, we went to train station and hopped on whatever train suited us for the time we had. It was really fun.

Obviously we stayed longer at the base towns and sometimes only spent 1/2 day in other cities, but it can be done. We were fairly new to Italy. We spent too much for a 1st-class pass but never got into trouble about reservations as there were always extra seats in first class.

Go for it!

The cars you see in Florence and Rome belong to residents, who *are* allowed to drive in the area of the historic center they happen to live in. You as a tourist are not.

Zerlina, if we did end up driving (due to my stubborn husband) anyway, where is it would we park, do you know? And how much are we talking here?

Thanks!!

TDudette, I think we will try and hold onto our original plan...we may have to cut some things once we're there though...it's good to know that it's been done though.

I don't drive in Italy, obviously, but I gather the going rate in centrally located parking garages is around 20 Euro a day in the larger cities. Long-term parking at airports is somewhat less, and there are normally shuttles from the airports to the centers.

Is there a website where it's easy to calculate the tolls involved in a specific driving route?

I agree that it's too many destinations and too much distance to cover. I'd go so far as to suggest you stick to Switzerland and northern Italy and fly home from Milan or Venice. Leave Rome, Pompei, Capri and the Amalfi Coast for another trip.

Grasshopper, go to viamichelin.com and plug in a route. It will calculate the distance, time, highway tolls and estimated fuel costs. You can specify if you want to avoid highways and/or tolls.

I've driven and trained in Italy, and I don't really think that driving saves time. Its more a matter of your preference - with a train you are restricted to the train schedule, which may not line up with exactly what you want to do and the car provides more freedom, on the other hand, a car can be a pain in some of the places you are going, parking is limited and/or expensive, tolls, gas, etc. My husband and I drove in to Rome (cars are allowed), but once you get to the city you don't need the car, so you are just paying for parking. In place like Amalfi or Cinque Terre, you don't need the car either - you can train or bus or ferry from town to town. I'd be inclined to train from Geneva to Turin, rent the car there and turn it in when you get to Florence and train the rest of the way.

Jean, Thank you!

I am with Jean on this one. I would stick with a max of 7 destinations and end in Venice. Get your car at Como when you leave there--you do not want it in CH. Here is my route:
Geneva
Berner Oberland
Lugano---to Como
Get car--to Cinque Terre
To rural Tuscany
Florence to drop car--train to Venice
That is a very full 3 weeks. save south Italy for your next trip.

I have only driven in southern Italy, around Sicily and through Calabria to Sorrento, and would do so for a ramble around any other rural areas too. But where cities are involved, it is trains only for me.
Bob's itinerary looks very good to me; I may try that (or some variation of it) on my next trip.