DAVID - even folks who love to drive may want to take the train IF visiting only cities like Rome, Florence or Venice, as is typical as like StCirq says cars cannot even be driven into the city centres in many Italian towns now - hotels may not offer parking, etc.

And if just going between those cities the autostrada can be a complete drag - speeding cars and windblocks let you see really much or to enjoy it. Taking side roads is neat but can be oh so tiring due to two-lane twisting roads clogged with trucks, buses, cars, etc.

So for basically city to city touring take the train - if you want to meander around Tuscan hill towns take the car and ditch the car rental when you want to visit say Florence, Venice or Rome.

For our trips to Europe, we will rent a car for a portion of the trip if we want to poke around small towns and visit rural areas not well-served by the train. So with a 2 week trip, we might have a car for 4 days and take trains the rest of the time. Just depends on what makes sense for the itinerary.

Back again to the posts after a few days without computer.
Very interesting reading.
Regarding car hire - on one hand it sounds great but at 70 I am not confident in driving in Europe as Australia is right hand drive. Another reason is that the person doing the driving is missing out on a lot of the scenery.
There are obviously pro's and con's to it but for me I prefer not.
www.airbnb.com is a site for accommodation in private homes all over the world. Has anyone had any experience with that type of accommodation?
After trying to sort out this trip to Europe I can understand why Asia seems such an easy destination for us Aussies!
Thanks all for your posts.

www.airbnb.com is a site for accommodation in private homes all over the world. Has anyone had any experience with that type of accommodation?>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb

I have a computer science PhD who knows all about them - interviewed with their office in Silicon Valley and said generally favorable things about them - been around since 2008 - a good sign I guess - seems to be a good thing and I have seen many other posters mention it before.

I have stayed in B&Bs all over Europe and usually find them thru the local tourist office of sauy Copenhagen or B&B listing services - the one I had in expensive Copenhagen was in a nice house in the suburbs - a nice residential area and was as good or better than any hotel room I've had.

So B&Bs in general, even in large cities are becoming more and more viable thanks to services like airbnb.

Searching the airbnb.com site I see some astounding prices for say Paris - 45 euros with breakfast inside Paris itself and in regional French towns 25 euros!

I'll have to keep airb&b in mind for future trips.