We did 56 days in a leased Peuguot in 1999 celebrating our 40th. We planned for and stayed in 12 destinations in that time--it was about right. Do not plan your next destination more than 4 hours away.

Send me an e-mail and I'll give you a detailed itinerary of what we did in ten weeks in 1967. There were fwere super highways, with none in France,but it will give a sense of distances.

I have found that travel time is taking longer and longer from city to city, due to increased traffic on the autobahn. Also, please check with your car rental agency on the countries that you may take your rental car into.
We usually rent from Sixt and we advise them when we are going into Czech Republic and Poland. We rented rooms at the Novotel, outside of Venice, last year and they had a free shuttle to the Rome Vaporette stop.

Also, check for a hotel on the outskirts of Florence, that has free parking, and take the local bus into the center. This worked very well for us on a few occassions.

Other cities we usually park in the city center parking garage, and yes it can get quite expensive, but at lease you know you are not going to come back to a clamped tire or a vacant space, because the car was towed.

Good luck with the trip, we are intending to do something similar in early August ie: frankurt to Prague,Austria, Italy not sure at this stage after that, would be interested in any Tips

Bringing this previous post of yours back up to the top - - perhaps you don't/didn't know about how to retrieve it (click on your own name).

It wasn't a very effective message header when you first posted it here - - to title a question simply "Parking" is distinctly worse.

There is a lot of info here - - and I suppose from your subsequent post that you have trimmed away at least some of the umpteen destimations off your list.

It's a start.

Best wishes,

Rex

Thank you all so very much. I had no idea, and didn't even consider the amount of traffic. I have been to the viamichelin site and wondered why certain trips of only a couple of hundred km could take many hours. We have modified our itinerary due to all the advise provided. I will again post my itinerary when it is clearer.

my email address [email protected]

I did try to email [email protected] but it was returned unknown, given they are planning a similar trip.

robespierre: tooooo funny.

ksch, just to give you one small idea about traffic congestion. My son-in-law was raised and born in Rome. He was back in Rome this past June due to both of his parents being in separate hospitals. Eight years ago driving from his family home in NE Rome to Tivoli took 20 minutes. This past June is took one hour. Just one small example.

I have been on the autostradas in Italy where (talking about in the NE region of Italy) the traffic was about 20 miles per hour due to traffic and all the trucks..we inched along mile after mile (I am using US descriptions of course, don't know how to explain it in metrics) An example..you can look on a map of Italy for an idea. Going from Padova to a small city north of Venice took three hours. Ten years ago it took about one hour and a few minutes.

You have received so many thoughts about travel time and traffic congestion. I hope you will take all these comments into consideration so that your trip to Europe will be pleasant and what you want. You do not want to spend your entire trip just driving from area to area without having the ability to enjoy each location when you arrive there. Best wishes.