Dropping the rental car and catching a train...any suggestions?
 

Hello,

Thanks again to all those who have already responded to my questions regarding the trip that my husband and I are taking to Italy in May (5-22). We are leaving Rome on the 14th to go to Tuscany. My thought was that we could take the train to Orvieto, spend a few hours in town and then pick up the rental car and drive to our B&B (ended up being near Buonoconvento). We are planning to travel from Tuscany to Geneva on May 20th to spend a day before we catch our plane back home.

My questions are:
- Should we just plan to drive back to Orvieto, drop the car and take the train on through Florence, Milan and to Geneva?
- Should we try and drop the car in Buonconvento (are drop fees as expensive as I imagine them to be?) and take the train from there to Florence and onward?
- Should we scrap Orvieto altogether, take the train from Rome to Buonoconvento and rent a car there? I had heard that there was not a ton of supply of rental cars there but if it makes the most sense, we could give that a whirl.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks so much!

Caitie

To compute if there is any drop off fee, just enter two locations into auto rental booking engines. They will tell you how much it would cost.
If you are visiting Orvieto, whether you have a car or not, you will have luggage issue. Leaving luggage in parked car is always risky especially if visible.
Rental at Chiusi would be a better option near Buonoconvento. However, if you pick up car in Orvieto, you can drop it off at Chiusi or at Florence airport.

No reason to backtrack to Orvieto. The drop fees, if charged, should be minor.

Re: renting a car in Orvieto or Buonconvento. First make careful note of the rental agency's hours of operation. In the smaller towns they often close in the afternoon. Secondly, do you need an automatic transmission? Those are harder to find in small towns. You may have a reservation for an automatic, but, when you arrive at the office, none is available. Such are the vagaries of car renters.

And don't try to drive in central Florence. ZTLs abound!

Thanks for the information! We drive a standard transmission so that shouldn't be an issue but the hours of operation are always a good reminder as it is so different from Canada and I keep forgetting about it!

I'm thinking about trying to drop in either Chiusi, Siena, or somewhere outside of Florence (I have read a lot about thos tricky ZTLs)...

Use Florence AIRPORT, not Florence.