renting a car
 

Any advice or places to rent a car from while in Italy? Any experiences or recommendations or things to watch out for or be careful about regarding driving and renting cars?? Thanks!

Try autopeurope.com. They are broker that often has the best rates.

Get an International Drivers Permit from you rlocal AAA office. The rental agency will probably not ask for it - but it is a legal requirement to have one in Italy.

Trains are often a better choice for travel between cities.

I understand that trains are often the better choice to travel between cities. We are however staying in Radda of Chianti for 5 nights and hoping to do some driving around Tuscany. Figured it would probably be easier to have a car for this time. WE have no intentions of having a car while in Florence (except for picking up and dropping off our rental) or Rome.

since you gave us no details it was hard to know what you really needed. Yes - for touring around Tuscany a car is great.

Ah no worries. When I was posting the message I didn't even think about those details being helpful! Makes so much more sense when we explain ourselves. Thanks for your help janisj. :-)

My husband always rents the car in the U.S. and selects the best price form several quotes. I'd get a GPS from rental car company, it makes driving much more relaxed. Our last trip 2007 we rented a car from Hertz in Italy (best price) and from Sixt in Hungary, again best price.

We just used AutoEurope in Italy and our rental came from Hertz. They asked to see my international driving permit and were asking everyone to see one.

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Marycang...how much extra did you have to pay for the GPS system through Hertz? We are renting from Hertz in November and adding the GPS just about doubled the cost of the car? Does that sound right? If this is really the case we will find another way to get/use a GPS system.

Thanks!

ChanB
We did not rent a GPS from Hertz as it was not available because we picked up the car in Milan and dropped it at Bolzano. The GPS we rented from Sixt was 48. euros for 8 days. About 10% of the car rental.

Have you considered buying a portable GPS? They are getting quite cheap now.

You can buy a package with maps of the whole of Europe, and if you bought US maps as well, you would have something useful to you when you get home.

Or if you have a smartphone, you can now buy GPS software and maps for them. For instance, Nokia Maps is free software, and the maps are free too - but you do have to pay a subscription for the actual "turn left / turn right" navigation!.

If your phone does not have GPS receiver built in, you would also need a (wired or bluetooth) GPS receiver - a lot cheaper than a separate GPS system.

The cost of hiring one would soon mount up to the vo