Is it worth renting a car with the railway that runs throughout europe? I plan on either starting in Rome or Venice and the farthest south will be the Amalfi Coast. I've read a little about the back roads being not to bad.

It depends on your interests. If you are interested only in cities and medium size towns, trains might be fine. If your thing is out-of-the-way locations, a car is better. The problem is that towns and cities are designed in such a way that it is not easy for a non-local to navigate around. Complaints about tickets received for driving in restricted zones abound on this forum.

thanks, I'm sticking to the major cities,. Do you think it's cost effective renting a car? Would all the train tickets add up to more than the cost of a rental car?

Others would not do it, but we used the Regionale, i.e. local train, between Rome and Naples and from Naples to Pistoia. No reservations necessary, and definitely cheaper than a car rental. Don't take my word for it. Look at train fares on http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...0080a3e90aRCRD and compare them to car rentals from http://www.kemwel.com/ or http://www.economycarrentals.com/

I doubt it, where are you going. It sounds like you mean going from Italy across all of Europe. And then what would you do with the car, drop off fees in foreign countries can be astronomical, if even allowed. And if you are going to major cities, what the heck are you going to do with the car in the city? Parking is very expensive in cities.

1. There is no railway that runs throughout Europe. Every country has its own rail system.

2. If you're only going to major cities, there is no way you want a car. Many cities don't even allow nonresidents to go into the city centers, and if you do you'll be fined lots of money. Parking in legal lots, if you can find them, costs a small fortune.

3. You'll have to price out the train tickets versus car rental/gas/tolls/parking. No one here can do that for you or help with it because we don't know where you're going, or when, or how many people are involved and what ages.

4. Not sure what the comment about back roads is all about. Pretty much all the roads in Italy are fine to drive on unless you head for truly remote areas in the country. But if you're going to major cities, you won't use back roads to get to them anyway.

A fair bit more information from you is necessary before anyone here can really hope to offer suggestions.

seat61.com train your best cheapest bet I have done both

tigercarrentals.com if you want to rent cheapos from

200 euro/wk with lots of extra charges tolls etc

Big parking charges speed traps in cities especially Florence

Naples is downright dangerous craziest drivers in the world

for me except for Cairo where they drive downtown bumper

bumper at night with their headlights off(true story)

In naples they passed a seat belt law so everyone just

wore a T shirt with a PICTURE of a seatbelt on it(true story)

so except in rural areas I train regionals are VERY cheap

from 2 euros per hour.

Unless you are stuffin a bunch of people in a tiny car renting one for your whole trip wil cost more than trains - and the car will be sitting in a garage at $40 per day when you are in cities.

We do road trips all the time and love them - but we spend a lot of time in smaller cities and towns and driving in the countryside. To go to a few large cities, a car is just a nonsense.

so except in rural areas I train regionals are VERY cheap

from 2 euros per hour.>

there are NO trains in Italy that cost 2 euros an hour and this poster has been told this by me and others more in the know yet he keeps repeating this crap. That is just wrong info - qwovadis please show me ANY train outside of city metros that costs just 2 euros an hour.

Why do you keep saying this? It may have been true years ago but has not been for a long long time.


???

Have never heard of any train at 2 euros - although I'm not an expert on every discount out there.

But renting a car, plus, gas and parking will be more than $100 per day - perhaps much more with gas at $10 per gallon. You can get fairly far in a train on that - and you won;t be training every day.

Partly it depends on how may people you are, which you don;t specify.

there are NO trains at 2 euros an hour and have not been probably since Mussolini days - ignore anything this poster says IMO!

so except in rural areas I train regionals are VERY cheap

from 2 euros per hour.>

qwonotvadis - can you point out any Italian regional train that costs a mere 2 euros an hour?

Just one would do.

Why do you keep posting that misinformation?

why why why????

qwovadis - some examples of trains for 2 euros an hour?