London Paris Tuscany Rome

Whether you rent a car depends on how much driving around in each country you want to do and where you plan to base yourself. If basing in the bigger cities (London, Paris, Florence, Rome), I think I would mostly rely on public transportation, except for maybe Tuscany. Take the Eurostar from London to Paris, fly from Paris to Florence, after a couple of days in Florence rent a car for Tuscany and drop it in Rome, then fly from Rome back to London the day before your flight home. All of these cities have great day trip opportunities that you do not need a car for.

I'm trying to now organize our itinerary and how we will get from
London to Paris to Tuscany to Rome and back to Paris.

Why would you back track to Paris a second time? Did you mean London, for your return home?

I agree that taking the Eurostar makes the most sense to get from London to Paris. You certainly won't need OR WANT a car in London or Paris. Get an Oyster card for travel in London and a Passe Navigo for public transportation in and around Paris. It's even good for the trains to Versailles and Disneyland Paris, should you want to go there.

It's a very long, time consuming, drive from Paris to Florence. And you would have very expensive drop off fees if you drop the car off in Italy. And you DONT want the hassle of a car in Florence. It makes much more sense to fly to Florence. Then rent a car for your time in Tuscany. Drop the car in one of the towns enroute to Rome, and then train into Rome. You will need to get an International Driver Permit, which is required in addition to your BC drivers license. You can get it, and the photos that are also needed, at your CAA office. You don't need to be a CAA member to do this.

I have no thoughts on how to improve on Nancy's suggestion.

Driving from Paris to Rome and back is like driving from Vancouver to Medicine Hat via Calgary and returning via Seattle to Vancouver.
Will your 9 yr old really like sitting in a car that much?

Have you looked at what tolls for that journey would run?

Satisfy your yen for driving in Tuscany.

You didn't mention it, but I have included Venice. If it really doesn't appeal then fly from Paris to Florence as Nancy suggests.

Fly in to London (7 nights)
Eurostar to Paris (7 nights)
Fly to Venice (3 nights)
Pick up car for Tuscany (7 nights)
Drop off car in Rome (5 nights)
Fly to London (1 night)
Fly home

I don't believe you've been reading Rick for ten years, because he urges everyone to get Open-Jaw transatlantic tickets. In fact, it's sometimes possible to fly home on two segments in one day, if you search airlines carefully. But why go back to London, especially with a wasted night and half-day? BTW, have you ever driven on the Left Side? (You said British, but you didn't make the answer to that question clear.) I ask because my wife's job is to say " Keep Left, Keep Left" when I make turns. Can your daughter handle this?

You have excellent advice from others. Do not drive except from Venice to Rome. In fact, the trip from Tuscany to Rome is unrewarding. And you don't want to drive inside Rome to return the car for the week there. Perhaps return the car in Orvieto, and train to Rome.

A month is a nice long trip and I'd look to mix in some smaller towns to go with the big three. Smaller towns are less expensive and it's nice to get away from the crowds.
This would be one possible itinerary with good logistics....you fill in the number of nights.
London
train to Bath
fly Bristol to Rome
train to Orvieto
rent car (Hertz), drive Tuscany
drop car in Siena
train or bus to Florence
overnight train or fly Paris
fly London to connect to flight home.

One or two flights and all short direct trains. Hertz is the only company with offices in Orvieto and Siena and both cities are easier than Rome or Florence for driving.

I don't read much, I play music and sing and have very little free time to do even that as a mom nanny and cleaner. I watch Rick Steves and follow these kinds of threads and keep close to the Rick Steves way. I love his videos and site.

I will not be renting a car after all even with confidence in my driving skills. I will in Tuscany as it's required to for where we're staying. But won't need to drive much there as it's a village and will have what we need. A taxi there from Florence would be too expensive. We're flying home from London. Flights from any other major cities would add $600 and up to get home from. I figure a train back to London is cheapest. In this order:
London 1 week
Paris just over a week
Tuscany just over a week
Rome 5 days
London Home

Even flying looks decently priced. Again I dont read a heck of a lot and when I do I have little time. So proving things out and planning is challenging. Booking 180 (or 120) days in advance for Eurail is kind ignorant confusing. So many deadlines! With a 9 yr old.

I really appreciate you guys! This will be my first and definitely last trip to Europe so i will have many chances to see Siena and all those others places.

I picked those years ago, bucket list top 4.

:)

I think you may find that flying from Rome to London is cheaper than the train, though I don't know what kind of rail deal you could get for your daughter. But definitely check it out on skyscanner.com. You'll need to go all the way through the purchasing process, just short of supplying your credit card number, so you can see what the extra charges for baggage, etc., will be. You might find some bargain-basement airfares still available. If not, you should lock down that train trip (buy tickets) as soon as you are absolutely sure of your timing. If you wait and end up paying full fare, it will be painfully costly as well as painfully long. (And may well be more expensive than non-bargain airfares.)

In any case, don't cut it too close; schedule yourself back in London at least 24 hours before the outbound flight. The usual advice here is to structure your trip so that you see your departure city at the end of the trip, so you don't have to worry about getting back in time for the flight home. That would mean getting yourself from London to Paris as soon as you can and essentially beginning your trip there. Admittedly, pushing London to the end of your trip significantly increases the risk of chilly, wet weather during your stay there, so you'll need to weigh all your options.

For future reference: Did you price multi-city tickets into London and out of Rome (the best option), or did you look at two one-ways? Unfortunately, I think you're going to find that having to return to London ends up costing you a great deal of the $600 you believe you have saved. You shoukd consider not only the cost of the otherwise unnecessary Rome-London leg (including getting to and from those airports), but also mostmif not all of your expenses for the last 24 hours, because how much of a vacation is that going to be? You'll be paying a high London-area price for that last night and have little opportunity to do any sightseeing.

Suggest you fly from Rome to London. 3 hr flight vs 24 hour rail journey.

Flights look to be about 100-150 US$

Suspect train fare cannot be any meaningful amount less

Rick summarizes his book advice in some of the links to the top left of the desktop view of this forum. You should certainly skim his train advice before you buy rail tickets. I think you were just using the term Eurail casually - but the specific word suggests that you might not be buying the cheapest tickets possible. Train tickets are not (financially) unlike plane tickets today; You get a discount for long-in-advance decisions and purchase. You pay more to be footloose and fancy free at the last minute.

Because you have a firm itinerary and several big cities, I see little penalty for advance tickets. There is enough to keep a 9-year old interested in any of those big cities. I would repeat the advice that a car can be very useful in Tuscany. YOU (remember you? It's not all-about-HER .... ) might get bored sitting at a rural agriturismo. But there's a lot to learn (search box top center) about car rental in Italy.

Just to be clear I am flying into London and home from London but that can be changed to an open jaw I will look into that. Taking notes of the the other suggestions as well. But just to clarify from my first destination of one week we are going to Paris for a little over a week. Then Tuscany and then Rome and back home (from london? Wherever is cheapest)

There's nothing else on our itinerary, if going from Rome back to London is best we shall. I thought it would be but then this other flight type came up and was better. Looking at train options online from Canada is a little confusing for a first timer, Rick steves makes it sound easy peasy in his writing.

What car rental would you go with? For Tuscany? Budget?

Thanks for repeating the itinerary - it was a reply that mentioned Venice, not you. But see the next paragraph. It's a long way from Paris to, say, Florence. But you have set the itinerary.

Before you select a rental car company, you have to decide how you are getting to Tuscany and what city you will arrive in. I would think that Paris-Venice is a very likely budget airline trip, but I haven't done the research. (I know Venice isn't in Tuscany, and isn't on your itinerary. But it's a magical place for a 9-year old, and a reasonable gateway to Tuscany.) You might be able to fly to Florence instead, even though you're not "seeing" Florence. Florence is a likely train target from Paris. https://en.voyages-sncf.com/en/ (Please note that RailEurope has PAID for an AD to appear above the Google search for "SNCF"!!!!!) Another question (it's hard to tell from your postings) is whether you have a small list of potential housing options in Tuscany - that would influence the other choices.

The next step is to learn about Italian car rentals in general, using the Search box for this forum. You need to read about insurances, IDP, ZTL, size of car, avoiding baggage theft, and so on. (Let me point out that by reducing your car rental to several days, you might care less about how much the absolute zero CDW costs per day .....)

Then you can use an aggregating site (either a pure rental car one, or a place like Expedia) to price ALL the rental companies at the place you're flying/training to. THEN, you go to the actual website of the companies you are interested in and see where their agencies are in that location, and what HOURS they are open, and how that fits your needs.

This is just to address the flight home-

Many of the routings from FCO to YVR connect at LHR

If you can change your routing to be open jaw with the connection in LHR, it would be better to do that, than having 2 separate flights, one from FCO-LHR and the other your LHR-YVR.

In the former it is the airline's responsibility to get you home should there be a missed connection. In the latter its on you to get to LHR on time for your flight home

Adding to Joe's comment, I would not want a flight via LHR that requires changing terminals. The last time I did that, the extra security line was miserably slow, and there's always a worry about the bus ride between terminals. I am generally in favor of connecting flights, so I am not slamming Joe.

"Open jaw" is what appears on airline and agency websites as a multi-city or multi-destination search function. They usually save a lot of time and are no more expensive, considering the cost of returning to the city of arrival. They are not individual one-way tickets; they must be purchased together. You may be stuck with your current trans-Atlantic tickets to London but it's worth asking the airline if you can fly home from Rome. Even paying a change fee could be worthwhile considering the expense of getting back to London. Probably a lower level of stress, too, and more time to enjoy Rome.

If you are holding Vancouver to London return with Air Canada then you may be best to leave it. 'Open jaw' is really only an advantage when your chosen airline serves both your start and end point, without any need for further connections. In your case a Toronto/Montreal connection may be necessary for Rome/Paris.

I meant we have our flights planned not booked and that it's not too late to change them. I already booked a few moths ago and then it was free to cancel within 24 hours. I don't have my computer setup I'm on my phone but it's Friday! Time for weekend travel planning:) I'm going to follow up with what I find to get some reassurance that I am finding some good stuff. And Venice actually seems quite doable, my daughter is homeschooled and is already living geography and culture I know she's not going to be bored! Her passion is a small strong as mine!!!!

I really like Richard's suggestion, I think it ties together your sites elegantly. You could do that but instead of flying back to London for departure, simply depart out of Paris.

you really don't want to be driving among the different countries. You want to fly or take the train depending on which order you're going to where. Driving those distances is no fun and eats into your vacation time way too much.

What a wonderful privilege to have four weeks - and to be allocating the time as you have. Have a wonderful trip.

A good place to look for train tickets is trainline.eu.

You'll definitely want a car in Tuscany, it makes it so much nicer to have the freedom. In general, I think rental car companies are all about the same, unless you're renting in a place like Orvieto that only has one rental company. Read Rick's advice about rental cars, a lot of us here use AutoEurope, which is an American company that makes the rental for you.

I am now confused if the OP has flights booked or not. She wrote twice that she's booked and once that she cancelled???? This trip is still in the dream stage and I wonder what the budget is?

It's definitely a dream trip. I had flights booked but I cancelled. The story behind that was I was visiting a friend in Newfoundland in April and there was a music and art festival that went until 6am at an old hospital converted into a hostel. I was offered a chance to perform! My flight home was at 5am from Deer Lake so I attempted to stay up til 2:30 there and then get from the hostel in Gros Morn to Deer Lake airport by 4am check in. Well I got lost. Luckily my ticket was paid for on aeroplan by my friends store business miles (Newfoundland Emporium) and I was able to change the flight. Sadly though there werent any for over 2 weeks and I wasn't going to wait 2 weeks for a flight. At least I could still save the flight for a year. In the end I had to change my London flights in for a flight home to BC throughout westjet. It cost me money to change it and I had to save up again for Europe. Positive attitude! Live and learn! I have dates though! Sept 18-Oct 16 I am also seeing the Sigur Ros concert at the Apollo Eventim which is on September 21st, I have VIP pass because I happened to be online as the email notification came in for ticket sales. (I missed the concert in Vancouver last year my friends went though and it will be the same tour and the last concert in Europe for a while) I am in row E! And I'll be probably staying at The Hari hotel for that night and the following night as they have the best rates for a hotel with quality babysitting services. My daughter practically will look after herself, she's my helper at my p/t nanny jobs and has little cousins and is super independent for her age. I look forward to seeing what she chooses to do! My budget isn't humungous but I've booked AirBnBs with suoerhosts who have all been very communicative and let me change dates and I feel confident in my choices. My in laws run an airBnB and through AirBnB I've met some helpful staff online (not all are amazing but with the right words and patience you can get some helpful people working with you). I've been able to make sure I have found great hosts. They are almost all private entire places, one in London is in Camden with a chef, we are renting a room. She makes pastries! I'm still looking for one for after the hotel, maybe in Brixton as I loved Dido's music video from Brixton and area on her Live at Brixton DVD in 2005. And the ones in Paris are lovely, one is very small, the size of my daughters loft bed haha. Well not quite but super tiny in an old character building. So I'm quite happy with my planning so far as well as budgeting. I'm booked in Tuscany as well in a village which the details are online I can post more maybe. To be honest the Tuscany idea was inspired from the movie Under the Tuscan Sun which I found at a movie rental place when I was going through a divorce in 2002 lol. I have wanted to go to Tuscany since then. And as an artist of course I want to see the David and the Sistine! I absolute love Michelangelo with a passion! And as a musician I hope to find some inspiration for me own music. I'm not looking to be a big tourist! More of a dreamer for sure! So budget is important which is why I was willing to rent a car....but it's not wise so...

Good to read that her 9 yr old daughter is essentially self- sufficient.

I must need more coffee, because I really couldn't follow the rest OP's latest post.

Stand by my suggestion to limit car rental to just the Tuscany region

Don't feel bad Joe. I think I had the same problem.

It seems the OP has set her dates for this fall, and has concert tickets for something in London, so that will commit her to London at the beginning of her trip. But if I'm understanding her post correctly (and I doubt that I do) she still doesn't have any flights or accommodations booked, or firm plans (and costs) for transport between cities. I think she says she has a tight budget, but I don't think she has yet done an estimate on the costs for the entire trip- like food, attraction costs, car rental/insurance/gas/tolls, intra European trains and flights. That kind of thing. . Looks like she's hoping to stay at Airbnb places to save money on accommodations but hadn't actually booked. But I could be wrong.

OP, this weekend might be a good time to put your plans on paper and cost them out, then perhaps come back with firmer plans, before committing to making your bookings.

I can't remember if you said your daughter is home schooled. Is that how she's able to miss a month of classes?

I have almost $7000 for flight and everything else but acoomodations. As i said my accommodation is booked. My plan so far:
Fly from Vancouver Sept 17
Bus from airport to Camden
Camden Sept 18-21
Bus to Belgravia (I think as seen on google maps)
Sept 21-23 The Hari Hotel (Sigur Ros concert Sept 21)
Sept 23-25?????? Can I just be fun and wing it here and find a funky hotel? Brixton maybe? A little spontaneity?
Sept 25 train to Paris
Sept 25-29 18th Arr check in after 3pm
Sept 29-Oct 2 smaller flat 19th Arr
Oct 2 train to Florence???Tuscany??? Car???
Oct 3-7 San Giovanni D'Asso Tuscany (date she can change easily)
Train/drive to Rome?
Accommodation dates in Rome can't also be changed easily

Then home

I'm actual trying to keep it simple without doing nothing and being boring. I can't see myself dragging a guitar around. Or my flute. My daughters bought a Melodion (blow keyboard that sounds like an accordion) so we can be creative. I don't want wang shop til we drop. I like a good coffee every couple days, pastries for breakfast and to cook (hence airBnBs)

I don't want to I burn out by cramming Venice in but if it's doable the Italy part of my trip is still flexible.

Setting up computer now. It was 27 degrees here in Victoria BC and I had to take my daughter to the beach...and daydream.

The Hari

And yes my daughter is homeschooled with Oak and Orca, a bioregional school of diversity. She has taken voice, fiber arts, dance and gymnastics and had the opportunity to study the map of the world thanks to mentor based teaching. Her teacher lives in the interior of BC and hasn't road tripped with her kids around the continent. She encourages us to just go.

Might I add I have hosted some guests from Europe through couchsurfing all women, young and aspiring. One was from Paris and she complimented me on my ability to understand the language and her accent well. My daughter was in French immersion but is picking up on Spanish now too and working on keeping her English alive and well:)

Use train or fly the Paris to Florence leg.

700 driving miles in one day? And then there is the one way drop charge for a rental (and tolls). Not at all appealing or practical.

Also take train from where ever you are in Tuscan region to get to Rome. The plague is about the only thing you want to avoid more than taking a car into Rome

A car rental for Budget is roughly $600 per week all insured etc so that seems good for driving within Tuscany. My aunt is in Greece and having an easy time driving from village to village. If Tuscany is anything like Greece I should be fine and it should be fun to drive in Tuscany are. And worth it to drive for the week! Then train to Rome and figure out home transportation from there.

Did someone mention renting a car in Venice and driving from Venice to Florence to Tuscany? And then flying to Rome? Or is the only best place to have the car in Tuscany, while flying to all other locations? I'm trying to keep flights to a minimum, I don't want to have a complicated itinerary for a 9 yr old.

And these might seem like silly questions, but they are important to me as a first time traveller to Europe.

I booked my accommodation in Tuscany a day after I check out of my accommodation in Paris so we could take a train. Should we fly to Venice (or Florence or wherever we start in Italy) instead?

I'm asking because if it's feasible to rent a car in Venice it wouldn't cost as much to travel in Italy. I would just need to split up my accomodation (add a couple nights or 3 nights in Venice) and return to the car to a place where I can fly to Rome. I would have a total of 1 week with the car, 1 week between Venice and Florence and Tuscany and then head to Rome.

This is why I ask if the train is NOT such a good idea. This thread is 2 years old. Maybe the train is better now?

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/train-paris-to-florence

Why are you staying in three different hotels in London and two different hotels in Paris? That is such a waste of precious time on vacation to move around like that.

You can't wing it on hotels in London in September unless you have limitless money or don't care where you end up.

The only reason I'm staying in a hotel at all is because I need a trusted reliable childcare provider for my daughter when I go to the Sigur Ros concert on Sept 21. I'm not going to be able to afford a hotel the entire time I'm in London. And I want to see Camden and Brixton. Are they not pretty decent bus rides away? I live in Victoria and have travelled by bus most of my life (except from 26-35 years old when I had vehicles). I'm a bike and bus girl mostly. So is my daughter.