Car Rental

Sounds normal. One-way car rentals in Europe where the car is dropped in another country tend to be very expensive.

One option might be dropping the car in say Genoa, taking the train to Nice, and renting another car there - no idea if that would fit your itinerary or not. Personally, I'd try to do as much of your journey as possible by train and rent a car for a day or two here or there in places where it makes sense - not in the big cities.

Not sure just when or what kind of car you were looking for, but just picking 2 weeks in July on expedia found a BMW 3 series for ~$2500

smaller cars for around $1300--- the one way international drop fee is a killer

as already noted you may want to get a rental car only where/when other public transport is not practical, and use trains as much as possible

I usually check all options before committing. My upcoming European car rental had similar results. For ten days from Toulouse to Bordeaux, I got a wide range of prices from $150 to upwards of $2,000, most in the $300's. At first I was going with one at $145 then noticed there were other charges totalling about $200 that weren't included in the quote. I looked some more and found one at about $160 total and went with that.

Often there are charges related to airport pick ups. One option to explore, if you haven't already done it, is picking it up downtown as you leave Rome. I always consider dropping on one side of a border and picking up another after a train across the border too. That relatively small inconvenience can save a lot of money.

You might want to check rentals through AutoEurope.com which is highly recommended by many posters on this forum. From personal experience, drop fees for a different country can vary greatly from company to company. When I rented in Madrid and returned in Lisbon, I called their toll free number and one of their friendly and knowledgeable associates found a Hertz rental with a drop fee if €200 less than competitors which made it convenient and reasonably affordable. The option would have been to leave the rental in Seville and go by bus to Tavira for the next rental.

Thanks so much to you all for your helpful input. We are complete novices at this, so it helps to get some input from folks who are not!

I just priced out flying Rome to Zurich, renting a car for 4 days in Switzerland, and then flying Zurich to Paris, and comes to about the same price as renting a car from Rome and dropping off in Paris for 7 days.

So even though there's that $800 "one way/cross border" fee, it evens out.

(I also priced out renting a car from Rome to Milan and catching a train to Zurich, but that also didn't offer any great advantage.)

Thanks!

See, Paul, I have no idea why anyone would even consider driving from Rome to Milan - why not take the train? It's so much easier. Italy has a great train network - makes our Amtrak trains in the US look like tinker toys . People who visit Italy tend to rent a car in areas like Tuscany or the Amalfi Coast where a car helps get you around small towns or scenic areas. Renting one in Switzerland for a few days makes sense, too.

Then again, I don't really know your itinerary, so I'm not sure why you feel the need to rent a car at all.

As I mentioned in your other thread, a car is not the best method for getting around, especially on longer distances. For the trip you're planning, use the high speed Freccia or Italo trains from Rome to Milan and then connect with a Eurocity or whatever to Switzerland. If you can commit to specific departure times, you can save money with advance purchase tickets on the fast trains.

When you leave Switzerland, use the high speed TGV from Basel SBB to Paris. If you need a car to reach specific sites in Switzerland, just rent it for a few days, and then return it in Switzerland to avoid the exorbitant drop charges.

Rome to Milan? The train every single time particularly the Freccia. Fast, comfortable, hassle free and takes you from centre to centre.