Why we are renting a car & driving - Are we stupid?
 

We have decided to rent a car for our 2 week vacation in Italy. Here are the reasons why and thinking behind it.

Cost comparison, including all gas, parking & car rental (which we got for really cheap) it is only a $100 difference in train passes versus renting a car- very small nominal difference.

Our travel list is as follows over a two week period:
MXP Milan airport
Polenisa Parma
Florence
Rome
Siena
Bologna
Venice
Fly out MXP Milan

We chose a car because:
1) Freedom to make stops between cities. We get in at 8:30am in MXP and are going to our hotel at Polensia Parma. We cant check into our hotel until after 2pm which even with driving time leaves a few hour gap. We want to be able to stop and explore. As with driving between cities, espcially driving between Bologna and Venice.

2) Siena located on outskirts of town. We are staying at l castagno in Siena. We also plan to visit a winery or two before going to the b&b.

3) Parking we have planned out. In Florence, our hotel offers parking. In Rome, we have reserved parking by the train station which we will park for 3 days while we are in the city. Venice, we have planned to park right over the bridge. Bologna we have parking with our hotel, as with Parma and Siena.

4) We plan to purchase a good amount of wine. We are in Italy for 2 weeks, so along with our regular luggage, we will have wine we are purchasing from our wine tour in Florence and Siena. We plan to bring several bottles back with us and do not want to have to cart around a bunch of luggage while on the trains and throughout the city.

5) My husband likes to drive... and is really good at it.

6) We are getting the international driving license.

7) We have insurance - for both accidents and theft- in case someone steals some of our wine! (which we plan to cover up anyways fyi.

8) Freedom to come and go, stop and start our days as we please.

So... with wanting freedom in departure and arrival times, stoping for lunches or vineyards and having parking planned out- is it really such a bad idea to drive in Italy?

We've driven a LOT in Italy twice and found it wonderful. It sounds like you've got the parking worked out for where you really won't need the car (Rome, Venice and Florence) so I don't think it is an issue.

My husband and I also like to travel by car while in Europe. The trickiest thing about driving given your itinerary will be driving into big cities (it's easier to drive out of a city in my opinion). Given one ways and the narrow roads it can be very tense to get into a city and then to find your destination. I would make sure you have a GPS, a detailed Michelin road map as back up, and I would recommend that you study the route on line beforehand. Have you driven in Europe before? It's helpful to know things such as Uscita means "exit" and that routes are often marked by towns along the way and not road numbers as in the US. Hopefully you're a good navigator!

with the wine you need a car, cover up is not enough, the car needs to hide the contents or take out the stuff every time you stop

I agree with Bilbo - not only wine but especially your luggage. If it is not locked in the trunk there is a (fairly good) chance your car could get broken into.

Why would you pay to park your car in Venice? Just return it in Venice then take the train from Venice to Milan to fly home.

Be aware of Italy's strict no-tolerance rules for drinking and driving.

Read up on the ZTL's in every town you will be visiting - even the villages have them.

Be sure you confirm that each hotel has registered your car with the authorities, because you will likely be driving through at least one ZTL on your way to the hotel.

Good luck.

We did a combination of trains and driving when in Tuscany 2 years ago. Parking can be difficult. Be sure to understand the parking places. Don't park between yellow lines (residents), blue lines are pay (look for the machine and put the ticket on your dash), and white lines are free, but timed. Be sure to set your cardboard clock. Finding a parking place in bigger cities is a challenge, but not impossible. In Siena we followed signs to the Centro and then to Stadio (stadium) that were clearly marked with soccor-ball signs. Took us to a conveniently located pay parking lot. I assume you realize that there are NO cars in Venice, so be prepared to carry your bags over the streets and bridges to your hotel.

For costs, you shouldn't be comparing the cost of the car rental with the cost of a train pass, which is never a bargain in Italy. You should compare it with the cost of point-to-point tickets, which you can find here:

http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...005817f90aRCRD

According to www.viamichelin.com , it takes three hours and 19 minutes to drive from Florence to Rome. The estimated cost for fuel and tolls is €52. To this, add parking costs and the daily cost of the car rental. The train takes 1 1/2 hours from Florence to Venice, less than half the time. Full price tickets cost €43, but you can get tickets for as little as €19 with advance purchase. Even at the full price, the train will probably be cheaper than driving, and on major routes, it's much faster.

Parking is only part of the problem of driving in Italian cities. Have you read up about the ZTLs (limited traffic zones) and the heavy fines you can get if you accidentally stray into one?

I live in Italy, and have for the past 15+ years. My husband has lived his entire life in Italy. We have two cars, and drive quite a lot. We've taken driving tours all over central Italy. However, we wouldn't dream of driving into Florence, or any other city that we don't know very well. If we're going to the countryside, we drive. If we're going to a city, we take the train. If we're doing a mix of the two, we do a mix of means of transportation. For example, on one driving tour, we stayed in Montalcino. We took the bus from there to Siena for a day. We once stayed at a hotel just outside the walls of Lucca. We took the train from there to Pisa.

We also like to drive, and we also drive very well. We just don't drive in Italian cities. They weren't designed for cars, and the city authorities do everything possible to discourage people from driving in them.

<< 6) We are getting the international driving license. >>

It's a permit, not a license. You still need your license with you.

Just make sure you don't miss your first stop.

It is spelled Polesine Parmense.

Your GPS will need the correct spelling.

BTW, we have been to Italy twice. First time were in Rome for a week and then took the train to Venice. The second time we were in Rome for 3 days, trained to Tuscany where we picked up our car. Stayed at a farmhouse apartment for two weeks and did day trips via car around Tuscany. Got a flat tire in Assisi which was a major pain! Check to see if you have a spare tire. We did not and had to have the car towed and had to take a train back to nearby town until next day when we could get a new car. Lost two days because of it. Several days later we returned the car to same place and took train on to Florence. Flew out of Florence to Rome and on to Chicago.

As noted, you shouldn't be comparing train passes with driving, but rather discounted point-to-point tickets.

Are you aware of the costs of fuel and tolls? Viamichelin is a good site to use to verify that information

I love driving in Italy, but not into or around cities. No way.

There is a lot of great advice on this thread. If you haven't driven in Europe before I suggest reading http://tinyurl.com/pdpdk26. The ZTL advice is critical. Get a permiss from your hotels before hitting town. Driving in European cities is nuts, especially in Italy. Red lights are merely advisory for the locals.

I may be wrong, but I do not think the drive from Bologna to Venice is particularly scenic (only drove it once, so am not positive). There are, of course, wonderful cities in the area, such Ferrara and Padua, but I am not sure how easy these would be to get into by car as a day trip stop.

Also, you are covering a lot of cities in two weeks. Will you have time for scenic driving? Perhaps pick up the car just for the Siena portion, if that falls between Florence and Rome in your itinerary.

If you are making an investment in quality or expensive wine then are you leaving it in the trunk of the car while it is parked or are you taking into the hotels with you? Even if the temps when you are traveling are mild for you the inside of a car trunk can get extremely hot.

If you are leaving it in the trunk of the car then are you sure all the parking you have lined up is covered parking? There is no point in buying quality wine to bring home as a precious treat if you are going to leave in an enclosed trunk with the Italian sun beating down on it for 12 hours straight.

If you are taking it into the hotel then you are not getting a lot of advantage of being spared heavy lifting of your suitcases. If you are parking the car near the Rome train station and taking the wine to your hotel in a taxi (and back again) then you could have done the same thing taking the train.

What are you doing with the wine when you reach Venice?

Where are you flying from? If it's the US you'll be jetlagged and shouldn't be driving.

WRT train fares, see http://www.seat61.com/index.html for how to buy cheap Italian train tickets. Forget the pass.

Update.

Yes on all accounts that it will be cheaper to do train passes. I was comparing rail passes plus taxi costs against the total car rental, gas and parking. I was factoring the cost of gas based on google maps and rounded up a bit, but refactored the cost according to the www.viamichelin.com website. Which honetly didn't change much from what I expected. The two week car rental is only $450, gas and tolls of $500, and parking at $40 per day totaled around $1500.

We looked at what it would cost to just rent a car for two days, pick up at the MXP airport and drop off in Florence (so we could spend the first day driving where we have a large gap of time, and get to the Polesine Parmense area).

If we go the route of renting a car for the first two days and then trains the rest of the way, the total comes to around $1000. $300 for a two day rental from MXP to Florence, then around $400 for train tickets for the rest of the trip, $200 for taxi costs and $100 for the gas/tolls for the first day.

Our original plan for the wine is to bring it into the hotel, which yes, would mean that we would just have to lug it around, but we were going to leave our not in use clothes or dirty clothes in suitcase in the car so we didnt have to lug around tons of bags.

Is it a pain with bags and trains? We each plan to have 1 large suitcase and we are bring 2 duffle bags. As we buy wine, we will put in the suitcase and transfer dirty clothes to the duffle bags. I guess the only hard part of the luggage would be loading on and off the train? We can then just take taxi's to each of our hotels correct?

Questions now:

1) First class vs 2nd. I have ready many reviews that say the extra room is well worth the extra few dollars. Can you please confirm? My husband is a bigger guy and would want the extra space.

2) Has anyone used this website? This is where I am getting most of my data from. It looks (or I thought) it was the more official site for tickets in Italy. http://www.italiarail.com/

3) When I go to purchase, I just pick a time, the class and non-refundable. How far in advance of the train leaving do you need to be there? How long does it take to get processed through?

4) Is there a train that goes to the MXP airport? Or do we go to the Milan train station and then take a taxi cab?

5) What else do I need to know about the train?

As I posted, all (and maybe more than all) you need to know about buyimg train tickets in Italy is on seat61.com.

Where are you flying from? I still think that if it is the US you shouldn't be driving on arrival. Check your bags at the train station and sightsee Milan if you have the energy.

Yes, there is a train to/from Malpensa, see the airport website.

I travel second class on trains, but I don't need a lot of room. You don't get "processed", you just get on the train. Allow 10-15 minutes to find the platform at major stations like Milan Central.

So you are planning to bring the wine home in your suitcase as checked luggage? My concern is the banging around your luggage, and wine inside, will take while getting on and off the trains. Sometimes you will have to carry your luggage up and down stairs at the train stations. Is this something everyone in your party is prepared to do? Can everyone handle the weight of the wine plus the duffles? Getting on and off trains is a rushed situation at times. I would hate to be constantly worried about the wine breaking.

We loved driving in Italy, but dropped our car before our last stop: Rome. We also enjoyed taking the trains. I loved having the trunk space for storage, such as for your wine when driving from place to place.

We are planning to bring wine home in our suitcase. We have been on several trips and brought wine home through the airport (like Mexico). We have purchased Wine Skin Bags, which have air bubble support around the wine bottle and seal so if it does break it doesnt ruin anything or leak. We also then add long tube socks around each bottle for extra cushion. We are flying from the US, Nashville to New York and leave at 6pm and arrive in MXP at 9am. We plan on sleeping on the plane so we will be well rested for the day. The drive from MXP to Parma area is about 2 hours so it wouldnt be a problem.

We are physically able to carry our bags, it will just be annoying.

I guess our decision is coming down to which of the lesser of two evils we want. Here are our pros/cons for each:

Car: Flexibility in departing times, able to make stops between destinations, see the countryside, less hauling of wine/luggage. Cons: More expensive, driving and parking issues (although we have parking mapped out)

Trains: Less expensive- by $500-700, less risk, no stress of directions, parking, tickets, less time between destinations. Cons: no flexibility, hauling of luggage, no stops.