cboris

Hi all,

I am trying to do internet searches to answer all my questions for myself, but I feel there is so much to consider and I'm going around in circles. I hope that someone here can offer advice. In a nutshell my questions are:

1.) Should I have a rental car at Lake Garda and
2.) Where should I pick it up?

I understand that you can often book train travel the day of travel or day before, but I'll feel more comfortable knowing that I have everything arranged ahead of time. I'll be travelling with my husband, my mother and 2 children. We're also travelling in August which will be a busy time so if trains ever do fill up, this would be the time, so I'd really like to settle this now.

We are staying in Sirmione on Lake Garda. I know there are lots of opinions on where to stay on LG and I did look at mid-lake (convenient) and northern (maybe more beautiful) locations, but I couldn't find accomodations that had everything I was looking for and fit the 5 of us, so we decided on Sirmione.

I've read varying reports on whether it's worth having a rental car at Lake Garda. Of course it'll be August, so there will be traffic. And I really would love to take the ferries as often as possible. I'm having a hard time understanding the ferry schedule, but not considering traffic it seems like it could sometimes be faster to drive to the northern part of the lake rather than take the ferry. Speed isn't our only concern, a ferry ride will be much more enjoyable than driving, but sometimes it seems like it could be hours and hours to get where we want. We'll also be going to GardaLand (which I know will be hot and crowded, but still we will attempt it!) so I'm not sure if I would need a car for that.

I know I can take a train from Venice S. Lucia to either Desenzano or Pescheria. The prices are what I consider to be reasonable, we can do it without changing trains, which is preferable, and the times seem convenient. My question is more about the rental car. Pescheria seemed more convenient to Sirmione, but I'm not finding rental car agencies listed there. I see at least one agency in Desenzano but I'm not sure if it's convenient to the train station.

Would I be better off taking the train from Venice to Verona and pick up a car in Verona? We could then return it to Verona and take a fast and easy direct train to Rome.

If I pick up the car from Desenzano, should I return it there and take a train, switching in Verona, or just drive to Verona to get the train to Rome? Is there one car rental agency in verona that is most convenient to the train station?

One more question, we all want to pack light, but will the size of car I will need for 5 passengers be too large to get around? I know that to drive to our hotel in Sirmione we would have to go down extremely narrow streets.

Thanks in advance!

Jean

Sirmione is lovely, but IMO the ferry service on Garda is not conducive to lots of sightseeing. I would definitely want a car.

Why don't you just rent the car as you're leaving Venice? Then you only have to load up the luggage and people once.

You'll have no trouble driving a large car to Sirmione (the town), but you should ask if there is a specific route you need to take to reach the hotel, whether you can drive all the way to the front door and where you would park.

If you're heading to Rome directly after Sirmione, you could drive all the way to Orvieto or Foligno (depending on which route you want to take), drop the car near the train station in either town and train into Rome. Unless this will be on a Sunday when the agencies will be closed.

bobthenavigator

As usual, I agree with Jean. Just get the car and keep it until Orvieto. With 5 of you it makes good sense, but I would make it a SUV.

cboris

Well, this is exactly why I ask questions here! I would never have thought of picking up the car in Venice and dropping it off in Orvieto. It looks like a 4 hour drive from Sirmione to Orvieto, which is not entirely unreasonable. We often drive 3 hours to go skiing, and with traffic or dicey weather it can be 4 hours, so it's not something my children are unaccustomed to.

It will be a Saturday, so hopefully the agencies will be open.

I believe it was in reviews of our hotel on tripadvisor that I saw the mention of narrow roadways, so those narrow passages may be specific to the route to my hotel. Another thing to look into.

Thanks Bob & Jean!

Jean

Double-check the hours for the rental agency office in Orvieto on Saturdays. It may close for the day at 1:00 p.m.

cboris

I'm reviving this thread. I'm sold on the idea of getting the rental car in Venice and driving to Sirmione but I'm still considering where to drop it off on the way to Rome.

It's appealing to drop it off in Orvieto, as I heard many times that's a lovely place to visit for an afternoon and we would have more control over the pace of our morning.

On the other hand, I'm not *positive* that I want to drive for 4 hours to Orvieto. It wouldn't be the end of the world and we do have another long car ride on an earlier leg of this trip that I was very happy to plan, but for that one, the train would have been more complicated, with a few switches. In this situation, it seems like a pretty speedy and straightforward train ride from somewhere near the Lake to Rome. If we drove to Verona, for example, it would be about a 46 minute drive and then a 3 hour train ride, without changes.

I would also be happy to take the train from closer to the lake and switch at Verona, but I'm back to my question about car rental drop off locations.

It seems as though the 2 station for Lake Garda are Desenzano del Garda and Pescheria del Garda. There don't seem to be rental car agencies in Pescheria, but there are a few in Desenzano. Though there are agencies in Desenzano, none seem to be near the train station.

If I decide I'd rather train most of the way to Rome, where should I drop off my rental car and take the train from? My guess is Verona, but I'm sure someone else has another opinion! As I said before, I haven't ruled out driving to Orvieto, but I'm just trying to think through all options.

Also, this could be the deal breaker, the Orvieto office DOES close at 1, as Jean suggested it might. So we'd have to leave Sirmione very early to make sure we were there in time. I'm doing more research on this as I write.

Thanks!

bobthenavigator

You have 3 good options---take your pick:
1. Verona
2. Bologna
3. Florence--at the airport--then taxi to the station

On week days many of the car offices close from 1 to 4 but then are open again after 4. I would be in Orvieto by lunchtime, park in town near the Duomo[big lot], see this lovely town after lunch, and drop the car after 4. Not true on weekends.

annhig

how about driving to Pisa and returning the car at the airport?

you could then get straight on the train at the airport, and pick up the Genoa to Rome train at Pisa centrale.

according to viamichelin.com you go past places like Parma and Cremona, and there should be no problems dropping off at the airport however long it takes you.

from memory, there are about 6 trains a day from along this line and it takes 3-4 hours [some trains go via Florence].

if you catch a regionale train, it costs less than €20 each, though they do take a bit longer.

cboris

Thanks to Bob & Annhig. I really like the Bologna option. I haven't figured out all the details but the trains are much more frequent than trains from Verona, it's not really all that far of a drive from Sirmione, and it seems as though there are a couple of rental car returns that are very convenient to the train station. And hopefully we can enjoy a nice lunch in Bologna. The food is amazing there, isn't it?

I also will look into Pisa, but I think we will be visiting the Leaning Tower earlier in our trip, so we'll have already ticked it off our list. But if it's very convenient, it may work for us.

Thanks! I wouldn't have come up with these options on my own.

Christine

annhig

cboris - looks as if Bologna is the winner! hooray!

if you are going to Pisa and want to clim the tower, make sure that you book in advance at www.opapisa.it. they only allow 30 people per 1/2 hour trip, and you need to get there about 10 mins in advance to sign in and deposit any bags in the lockers which are provided in the room next to the ticket office.

annhig

or even climB the tower.

hpluss1

I think it's a lot better to have a car in Lake Garda. I'd rent a car. We had a car and really enjoyed driving a little past Sirene for swimming, and at night driving up to San Zeno di Montagne. It's helpful to have a car with a GPS for this. You can easily pick it up in Garda, or in Verona which is very close by and both towns are easy to get to by train, but you could also pick it up in Venice and drive from there. I wrote a post about our weekend in Lake Garda here (we were just there last week). http://brooklynbabysocial.com/2012/0...w-i-love-thee/

hpluss1

Sorry when I said get car in Garda I meant Pescheria del Garda. That train station is only 10 minutes from Verona by train, so extremely close. Bologna for the car sounds great though, if you're sold on that. I love Bologna!! We stayed in Bardolino, very close to Sirmione. Have fun!