Venice, Tuscany & Positano
 

Thanks for taking time out to read my questions, and thanks in advance for any replies, greatly appreciated...totally need help as I am drained from so much research!
So, below are my questions:

1) Picking up rental car, preferably Hertz from Venice (we're staying in Cannaregio), Sunday 31st August...which location is closest? Will be driving to Chianti. Want to avoid Florence.

2) Need to drop car off in Tuscany, guessing Florence, as we need to make our way to Positano. There are various car rental offices, which one is closest to train station?
Do you suggest train from Santa Maria Novella station to Salerno and then ferry to Positano?

Should we hire GPS with rental car or just print maps?

Hope this makes sense, hours researching and brain is fried!
Thanks

As to question #2, yes I would recommend train from SMN to Salerno, then ferry to Positano. www.coopsantandrea.com for ferry schedules, assuming you are traveling between April and October.

Once in POsitano, you can hire a porter at the dock to take your luggage up to your hotel, unless you are staying right at the beach.

As to 1: pick the car up at Piazzale Roma, right next to the train station and very near a vaporetto stop. You can then take the causeway to the mainland. Much easier to get there
than to the airport.

As to 2: Be aware that you cannot drive in much of central Florence and probably wouldn't want to anyway. So I'd drop the car at the airport (shows a Hertz location) and take the bus to Santa Maria Novella

We don't use GPS. If you're a good navigator, maps work well for that part of Italy.

Thank you both kindly for your replies, this has definitely helped!

Unless it is a Sunday and you need to drop off the car at the Florence airport, there are other places you could drop it off other than Florence, including driving it to Salerno or Sorrento. If you would rather skip that long drive sought, consider dropping off the car in Arezzo, Chiusi (in Tuscany) or Orvieto (in southern Umbria).

Venice - Piazzale Roma - is great place to PICK UP a car. Because it's such a drop-off location, they will often upgrade you into a car they are trying to return to OTHER parts of Italy (especially Hertz and Europcar) at no charge to you!

A couple of the more popular drop off spots for rental cars when heading south (and avoiding the ZTL zones of Florence) would be Chiusi and Orvieto. Both Europcar and Hertz have offices here. The Florence Airport Rental Location IS NOT at the airport, so you'd have to take a shuttle bus or taxi to get to the bus into town (or taxi straight to the train station...)

I suppose I am an advocate of a GPS unit (AE has a great mailing-option). It's fun to get lost, but in a foreign country it's also great to have the security of "getting UN-LOST." If you've not driven in Italy before, it can be quite unsettling. Yet driving in the Italian countryside - especially with a manual transmission car - can be a lot of fun! We drive often on our motorino and now we remember those rides as the best part of living there. Have fun!

if you don't drive a manual transmission you can rent an automatic, they cost more but its not a deal breaker.

you may want to consider buying a good road map.. I have used Michelin maps. If you have a GPS that you can take with you and can download the maps for Italy you may want to consider doing that and check out the price of the GPS rental.

Thank you so much for your generous time in replying everyone, this has definitely given me a few options to explore...am trying to get to Positano as fast as possible and have researched that a lot of car rental offices in country side don't open til 9am, therefore will lose a lot of time waiting around...we only have 3 days in Positano & just really want to get there asap hehe, oh well, joys of travelling!

Don't know your whole itinerary. Are you spending time in Chianti and Florence or was that just to drop a car? You said you want to get Positano as quickly as possible. You could catch a flight from Venice to Naples and hire a driver from the Naples airport to Positano.

We recently drove from Venice to San Gimignano. Then drove from San Gimignano to Naples airport and returned the car. We had a driver at Naples Airpot take us to Positano with a Pompeii stop and tour on the way. Driving through Tuscany was a blast and very easy. Our GPS worked great. Let me know if you'd like more details.

Are staying in Chianti? If so, after your time in Chianti, drop the car in Chiusi and catch the train.

We bring our own GPS, but yes, I think a GPS would helpful if you are driving around Tuscany at all. We tend to do a lot of exploring. I love the Touring Club of Italy road map for Tuscany.

Instead of staying in Chianti, have you considered southern Tuscany around the towns of Pienza, Montepulciano and Montalcino? We just got back from a week in Montepulciano and it is stunningly beautiful.

Thanks everyone for your input again. I'm liking the sound of driving to Naples airport and having a driver pick us up and showing us Pompeii along the way as per Tripletdad suggestion.
Would really appreciate details of driver and price please TIA.

wekewoody did consider staying in Southern Tuscany but decided to stay in Radda in Chianti as we thought this was more central but definitely have plans to visit the south side, looks absolutely beautiful.

One note about GPS: Sometimes they don't guarantee GPS, even if you order it. You could show up and have them tell you, "Sorry, we're out of GPS units." Bring a good map as backup.

I would drive all the way to Sorrento to drop the car, and then a taxi to your final destination. It will cost about 50E for the taxi and you will get door to door service---a big deal in Positano.

The driver we always use is Sergio Rianna and his email is [email protected]. A couple of weeks ago, it was 100 euro to drive us from Naples airport to Positano. I highly recommend him.