Question about rental cars and trains for our Italy trip
 

Hello everyone,
My husband and I will be spending 5 weeks in central and northern Italy during May and the first week of June. I have made our airline reservations and all of our hotel reservations.

We plan on taking trains for the majority of our trip but we will rent a car for Tuscany and the Italian Alps. I have a few questions regarding logistics.

Firstly, when we leave Cinque Terre, we will take a train to Lucca, where we are spending 3 nights. We will pick up a rental car in Lucca for our last full day there so that we can sightsee in the countryside north of Lucca. When we depart Lucca, we will drive to Siena, where we are staying for 3 nights, and use the car to visit Tuscan towns, etc. Our next stop after Siena is Florence for 4 nights. This is my dilemma. Should we return the rental car to Siena and take the train to Florence? Or should we drive to Florence and return the car there? Which would be the easiest and least stressful option?

I have a similar dilemma with the Italian Alps. We are spending 2 nights in Verona, and then we will stay in Merano. Should we take the train from Verona to Bolzano? And pick up our rental car in Bolzano? Or take the train from Verona all the way to Merano, which necessitates changing trains in Bolzano? And then we would pick up our rental car in Merano. What is the easiest and least stressful? I guess this depends on if we want to spend any time in Bolzano the day we leave Verona. We do want to see Otzi, the Iceman, and take the cable car to the top of the Renon Plateau but I don't think we would have the time to do all this on the day we leave Verona. If we did want to stop off in Bolzano on that day to sightsee, then we might need the car so we have a place for our luggage. I keep going back and forth as to what to do.

Thank you so much!

You might check the location of rental car offices in Bolzano. We returned a car there a couple of months ago (Avis), and if I recall correctly, many of the rental offices are near the airport, not the train station. We had to take a taxi from from our drop-off point to the train station. That may add to the logistics if you want to spend time in Bolzano during your transit.

As much as I like driving.... I would ditch the car as soon as I didn't need it anymore. So I would take public transportation Siena to Florence.

On the other hand, when leaving Verona it sounds like you will want to use the car. You want to keep your options open. Combination train/car for one leg of the trip is generally more stressful.

Yes, I will definitely check the location of rental car offices in Bolzano. I haven't delved that deeply yet into my train/car rental research. But you make a good point. If the rental car offices are not near the train station, then it doesn't make sense to pick up our rental car there. Thanks!

shelemm, regarding leaving Verona, it sounds like better options would be to either rent the car in Verona to drive to Merano, or take the train all the way from Verona to Merano. Will consider taking the train from Siena to Florence. Just need to figure out if there is sightseeing we would want to do on the way from Siena to Florence.

It is more convenient to take the bus from Siena instead of the train.

Have you been to San Gimignano? If not, it’s worth a visit on your way from Siena to Florence.

There are some trains and buses to small towns and villages near Lucca so it is possible to avoid a one way drop off fee (if any) by just hiring a car for your time in Siena. I'd even wonder about that as central Siena isn't particularly car friendly and it's possible to explore using local transport providing you don't want to visit several villages in one day.

The Siena train station is in the valley so I agree that bus to Florence is probably more convenient (one less change).

Whether you need a car in Merano depends on what you would like to do but presumably there are places you'd like to visit which are not accessible using local transport. If Bolzano doesn't work out because of the rental car company locations you could try Trento as another option. Merano would presumably be more convenient if they have a hire car company that you're happy with (you may not need one for the whole of your stay, for example).

"Whether you need a car in Merano depends on what you would like to do but presumably there are places you'd like to visit which are not accessible using local transport"
I don't know such places. Public transport all over South Tyrol is excellent.
https://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/m...ney/timetables

Thank you everyone for all of your helpful responses.

joannyc, we plan on visiting San Gimignano and hopefully Volterra on the drive from Lucca to Siena. Then we will have 2 full days in Siena. One day to explore Siena, and then one day to explore the countryside, such as the Val D'Orcia region, including Pienza.

dreamon and SusanP, thanks for suggesting the bus. Is it the Ricci Bus Company? Is the bus station easy to get to in Siena? And dreamon, we will definitely be visiting several villages in one day so public transport wouldn't work. We are staying at Palazzo Ravizza in Siena, and they have sent me parking instructions. So I hope it will be stress-free!

neckervd, thanks for the very helpful link. We do like to have the freedom of a rental car while in the countryside. But your link is helpful in case we change our minds. Or decide one day, for whatever reason, that we don't want to drive that day.

In the case you would visit the Ritten/Renon plateau (cableway plus small train to Klobenstein/Collalbo)
https://www.ritten.com/en
you can easily deposit your luggage at Bolzano/Bozen railway station
https://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/n...ith-my-luggage

I suppose you will fy home from Venice, 5 hrs from Meran by public transport
The alternatives would have been:
Munich, 5 1/2 hrs from Meran by public transport
Zurich, 6 hrs from Meran by public transport
Milan Malpensa ,6 1/2 hrs from Meran by public transport

Since you plan to visit San Gimignano on your way to Siena and then Pienza after, I would probably drive from Siena to Florence. You could visit a couple of Chianti towns on the way north. Returning a rental car in downtown Florence runs the risk of accidentally finding yourself in the ZTL. Instead, if you do drive to Florence, return the car at the airport and take the T2 tram into the city center. IRRC it's about 2 euro and runs every 5-10 minutes. All of this depends of course on your comfort level with driving. Good luck and have fun.

After Merano, we plan on taking the train to Varenna where we will spend 4 nights. And then to Milan for one night, and we fly home from Milan the next day.

Wow! I didn't realize it would take that long by train to get from Merano to Varenna. I checked the train schedule just now, and there are 3 changes. I have a memory of looking this up last spring when I was planning our trip. And I thought it was a shorter ride, with only one change in Milan. Am I doing something wrong? Did train schedules change? If it's this long with so many changes, we might prefer returning the car to Verona and taking the train from there. I really dislike making a lot of train changes.

greytop, thanks for the suggestion of making some stops in Chianti. My husband does the driving when we travel internationally, so I will ask him if he would like the option of stopping off in Chianti. I am trying to make this part of the trip easy for him. If we return the car to the Florence airport, we would take a taxi or uber to our hotel in Florence. At our ages (we are in our 70's) we prefer convenience. Taking a tram with our luggage doesn't appeal to me.

That’s a great hotel, I enjoyed it very much! Parking is behind the hotel.

Hi, Karen,
We stayed in Montalcino and on our way to Florence we took a more eastern route with the intention of going to Cortona and Arrezzo, but we ended up just going to Arrezzo. We returned our car at the Florence train station, which was very easy. We were concerned about ZTL fines but contacted our rental car company, and they confirmed that we were authorized to drive there. All cars coming through the ZTLs are photographed, and if you are authorized to be there you are put on the white pages, which drops you from getting a ticket. From there, It was an easy walk to our hotel. It was nice to keep the car through that journey, and we liked the flexibility to stop for one more lunch along the way.

interesting point, I find public transport is normally more convenient than a car in Italy, while using a taxi for the odd transfer works out so easy to do, I just ask my hotel or restaurant to arrange it (small tip if a small hotel).

Even so, some parts of Tuscany is easier with a bicycle, a motorbike or a car.

Merano - Varenna is rather faster by car than by train.
You can chose between
Stelvio Pass (if already open)
Swiss Engadin Valley
Tonale Pass - Aprica Pass
Each itinerary is very scenic, about 140 miles long and needs about 5 hrs driving

There is 1 train connecton with no change at Verona:
Meran dp 7.46 - Bolzano/Bozen ar 8.26, dp 8.45 - Milano Centrale ar 11.45, dp 12.20 - Varenna ar 13.24

neckervd, it looks like there are 2 connections on this route: the first one is in Bolzano, and the second one is in Milan. Am I right? 2 is better than 3, I guess.

coral22, thank you so much for this information. It's very helpful. I would never have thought to contact our car rental company about the ZTL's. We do like to have the flexibility of a car so we can make stops along the way if we choose to do so, and have lunch.

Thank you so much. This is helpful to know and alleviates my anxiety about the car, parking, and ZTL's. I might have selected this hotel because of your recommendation.