I have the opportunity to go to Tuscany and have no idea how they drive in Italy. Did not enjoy driving in Ireland-Do they drive on the same side of the road as we do in the US? Am just starting to research the area. Thanks for any help. If we go will be staying in Chianti.

yes, same side of the road as the USA

Hi Rose; Driving is easy. Roads are well marked. Sometimes when leaving the airport, getting on the right highway to your destination, can be tricky. But if you have done any 'urban' driving in the US, you will have no trouble in Italy. Dick

I have not found driving in Tuscany to be difficult, even if it is the "wrong side of the road" for me. I would avoid Florence and Siena, as it is easy to stray into "restricted" areas which can result in quite large fines.

I found a GPS to be invaluable on rural roads - not only for directions to my destinations, but also to indicate upcoming curves and hairpin bends well in advance.

RoseC: Not only is driving fairly easy in Tuscany, but having a car is just about vital if you want to visit the many small towns in the area, few of which are easily accessed by public transportation. Driving within the city walls in some of the old towns can be a bit tricky (very narrow roads), but you can almost always park outside the city walls. I haven't used GPS, but I do find that a detailed road map (the Touring Club Italiano maps, available at most roadside gas stations and bookstores are quite good) is invaluable. Knowing road numbers isn't particularly helpful, but if you know the names of the small towns on your route, you can navigate that way. The road signs may not show a number, but they will tell you what town you are heading towards.

BTW, speaking of roadside stops, be sure to try some of the roadside restaurants/food shops if you travel on the autostradas. Places like Autogrill have surprisingly good food (as compared to interstate rest stops in the U.S.), and they usually have food shops that sell regional specialties (cheeses, pasta, wine, etc.)...great if you want to do a picnic.

I would agree with your assessment of driving in Ireland, although I was beginning top get used to driving there after a week or so. We just returned from ten days in Ireland and two weeks in Italy, and the driving was much easier in Italy. However, if you're driving on the left side of the road, roundabouts do seem to make more sense (clockwise vs. counter-clockwise).

Hi RoseC,

My husband and I rented a car in Rome and drove to Chianti region (Castellina in Chianti) and it was wonderful.
We did have a GPS and I would say bring one from home with Italy maps or get a rental car with one. Our B&B was Tregole
and was a mile or so down an unpaved road and the GPS took us right to it! It was amazing how well it worked!

They do drive quite agressively in Italy-even in the countryside so just keep at a comfortable pace on the curvy roads and allow people to pass you which isn't so easy when nowhere to pull over since the roads are very narrow. Just stay cool and realize that you are on vacation and in no hurry

It was my second time driving in Tuscany and I wouldn't do it any other way.

Enjoy!!

hi rosec,

I'm an American living in Italy and I think suz49 at least starts to get close to describing some of the challenges of driving in Italy. I'm surprised anyone thinks the roads a "well-marked". They can be almost impossible to find, especially at night. When it comes to American "urban" driving, think more New York City than Seattle or even Los Angeles. Italy's roads were built before there were cars, and they are not built for cars with rare exception.

I don't want to discourage you from renting a car in Chianti if you don't think you'll be happy relaxing in one place. Driving can be enjoyable. I do it all the time -- although parking is far less so. But I certainly hope you won't eat at the Autogrill. They are perhaps intermittently better than US rest stops, but there are far better places to eat or buy picnic foods and pastas. There are many good food guides to the region available.

Hi; I think everyone's experience at driving is different. We have only driven in Italy seven times and found the roads well marked. Umbria, Tuscany and many other districts. We do stay out of the cities, Rome, Florence, but have driven in Milan. We stay of the main highways [A roads] and love the smaller roads [S or SS roads I think] where one finds lovely small towns not listed in many guide books. Such as driving into Vinci, a very small town, narrow roads, but easy to find and navigate. Driving to Bellagio was on a very narrow road, but it's just a case of being careful. You just need a good map or GPS [never use one] keep following the town you are going to, on the 'signs' at every exit. This is our experience, our opinion and I don't question anyone else's opinion. We alway drive a standard shift, but in Ireland last year we ended up with an automatic shift and the driving was easy. Dick P.S. Stu---you are so right

Zeppole: Absolutely correct that there are far better places for food than the Autogrill (and given your screen name, I'd expect you to know . However, if you're stuck eating on the autostrada, they're a whole lot better than Stuckey's or whatever you'll find here in the States unless you're off on the blue highways.

iris1745,

Whether or not roads are well-marked in Italy isn't a matter of opinion. You stated it as a fact, but it's incorrect. The fact that you yourself don't know how to identify the roads you were on most of the time is an indication of that. I think you are also unaware you posted in order to contradict me, so you do indeed question other people's opinions, and want to endorse some and not others. Perhaps had you qualified your initial post by saying you hadn't driven much in Italy but what little you had led you to the opinion that driving is easy, I wouldn't have felt compelled to proved the initial poster with a more accurate picture (since I live here and have driven in many places in all the world for several decades). Instead, you posted "Driving is easy." In Italy, it is demanding. (PS. Who is "stu"?)


Midnightsun,

Never ate a Stuckeys! I'll take your word for it. But next time you are in Italy, try packing the Michelin red-guide to take with you on the road. It comprehensively covers Italy in minute detail.

Oh for heaven's sake. Once again, Zeppole thinks she knows it all. I'm an American who's made probably 30 driving trips to Italy, and I think it's easy too. I've driven all over the country, including IN Rome and Firenze and Siena and Milano and the Dolomites and the lakes region and the coastal area south of Rome and Umbria and Tuscany and the Adriatic coast and all around Venezia, and never had any issues except that Italian drivers tend to be what I would call "forceful." They are fast and purposeful and know what they're doing, and if you have a map and know what you're doing and aren't a wuss, you'll have no problem keeping up with them. They are far more skilled, as a group of drivers, than American drivers are, and I always feel far more comfortable on the road in Italy than I do on a typical American road. And I do think the roads in Italy are well marked. Try driving in Northern Virginia, where nothing is adequately marked IMO.

And while the Autogrills don't offer gourmet fare, they are certainly vastly superior to anything you'll find on a US freeway.

People reading this should try to dig up St Cirq's posts about driving in Liguria -- where she wept and cried about tunnels, having to take her sunglasses on and off, was frightend to death of trucks -- I am not exaggerating. She scared the bejesus out of a poor poster planning a trip and it took several other posters, me included, to set the record straight.

This isn't about driving. It's about St Cirq stalking me for correcting her innaccurately tossed about travel nonsense. She feels no compunction about giving people incorrect translations of food ingredients, bum steers on Paris neighborhoods --whatever. People who correct her, like me, get railed at with personal attacks.

Driving in Italy is not easy, and Autogrill food is lousy in and of itself. Skip it.

Hey! I found it! Look at what StCirq posts when she isn't consumed with anger about stalking me to be mean and insulting, and willing to mislead other posters in the process.

The post from an innocent named Barb was about driving from the Riviera to Chianti. Here are StCirq's frantic replies:

StCirq on Jun 23, 09 at 10:15 PM
Oh yes, I've done it and nearly died in those tunnels. There must be 50 of them before you hit Genoa, and the sun is blinding (in summer) and you're constantly putting on and taking off the sunglasses and putting on and taking off the headlights, and everyone's going 180 kph, and it's freakin' nerve-wracking. I almost had a side collision with a huge trucker merging into a tunnel - my lane just disappeared all of a sudden and then I heard him honking and looked over to see this massive truck about two inches from the side of my rental car.

StCirq on Jun 23, 09 at 10:36 PM
Honestly, Barb, I'll admit to being a bit of a wuss driver these days, but I would never in a million years make that drive again (and I did it in my prime when I wasn't a wuss about anything). Can you take a train or fly?

StCirq on Jun 23, 09 at 11:02 PM
Poor Barb. We need to find an alternative for her, but what?

StCirq on Jun 23, 09 at 11:35 PM
Honestly, sweetie, I'd pay an Italian driver to do this drive for me (and cower in the back seat with a bottle of Chianti) or go for it yourselves with plenty of espresso the way the Italians do. Obviously, many of us have survived this, though we didn't enjoy it. Don't plan on any scenic moments along the way - you'll be glued to the road.

StCirq on Jun 23, 09 at 11:43 PM
I really do feel for you, Barb, because this was THE worst F***ing nightmare driving in Europe I've had in 30+ years (and that's more than 100 trips to Europe). I honestly thought I was going to die, and I'm not easily fazed. All I can tell you is stay in the right lane, pray out loud, and get off onto the side roads as soon as you can.


Just take it as a given that if I post something, StCirq will stalk it down out of anger about me, even if it means giving out false information to innocent people asking questions expecting honest and informed answers.

I have never found driving in Italy particularly stressful except for driving into Florence, which I recommend for no one (those nuns don't know how close they came to being instant angels). Yeah, sometimes you come to that point where there are a bunch of signs pointing in 16 different directions, and you'll eventually make a wrong turn, but if you have a good map and a good navigator you'll figure it out soon enough. You might even come upon a beautiful place you never knew existed.

If you put the correct petrol in the car (believe me, I know) and find out how to put that baby in reverse, it should be very enjoyable. Have fun!

The tunnels in Liguria are an anomaly, and you know it.

Hmmm ! Glad to see Zeppole making friends again.

St Cirq, the real issue is you stalk my posts because I've so often exposed you and you've gotten overly-emotional about it. The thread I quoted is the real you. I hadn't even posted in that thread, but once I did, to reassure the poster, this is what you wrote:

"zeppole's superiority complex is SO irritating. So she lives in Italy and knows better than all the American tourists...get OVER it already. We're not impressed."

StCirq expects me to stop posting about where I live because it irritates her and has more experience behind it than what American tourists have. Are you absolutely set against things outside your limited experience, or is it just me not liking the 7th arr and Colliure that override all else in your teeny headspace?

maitaitom,

So which is it in Italy -- that there are a bunch of signs pointing in 16 different directions or that the roads are well-marked?

Bob, I can't make friends with people who, when you correct them about a fact, come back and insult me personally. Why do you and StCirq stalk all my posts to attack me personally? Is it possible your idea of "friend" is people who (a) dont' know anything and (b) never correct you?

"So which is it in Italy -- that there are a bunch of signs pointing in 16 different directions or that the roads are well-marked?"

Both. If you make a wrong turn, I have found it is quite easy to get back on track, both by signage, a decent road map and a good navigator (or now, GPS). I have driven in Southern California for the past 42 years, and I think it is much more difficult for a newcomer to figure out how to get around here than in Tuscany, Umbria, the Amalfi or anywhere else I have driven in Italy.

I have never found it particularly difficult to drive anywhere in Italy, France, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Austria, Germany, Belgium or The Netherlands (although I did set the unofficial Holland record for illegal u-turns), unless I have been in a larger city (the Saarbrücken nebula comes to mind). That's why I rent a car to get around.

Yeah , you can make a mistake here and there in directions, but who cares? I make a wrong turn going to the grocery store or the dry cleaner every other day. Just deal with the wrong turn and move on. There's always wine at the end of the day waiting for you.

maitaitom,

I always hate making a wrong turn with a GPS, but that's another story. And I learned to drive in Southern California and spent a lot of years doing it (and in New York). The huge flat grids of the Southern California cities remind me not at all of anything in any part of Italy.

I don't disbelieve the people who post on Fodor's that they have never found it particularly difficult to drive anywhere in Italy or Europe. But in fairness to the original poster -- who did find being behind the wheel of a rental on one of her vacations -- I think it is not a bad idea to amplify the picture of what driving in Italy is like beyond the sanguine trip reports. Yes, it doesn't matter if you take a wrong turn -- but it is quite easy to do in Italy because -- as you point out -- at least half the time the signage is confusing. And when you have fast-moving traffic behind you, you aren't a failure if you feel stress and pressure.

I still maintain that driving in Italy -- where people drive aggressively and close-in, have an idiosyncratic sense of the law, where signage is confusing and where the driver of the rental car is perhaps only an occasional stick shift driver who hasn't been in the country before -- well, I wouldn't describe that as the same as taking a trip to Southern California and renting from hertz.

I specifically posted to Rose I didnt' want to discourage her and that driving in Italy can be enjoyable. With more complete information, I think can make a better choice about whether she's willing to take another flyer on car rental, given she didn't enjoy her last trip. I don't blame her for not wanting a vacation she enjoyed more than the last one.