Our group of 10 has round trip air reservations, to/from Rome, in June. Our itinerary is set but now I have rental car questions. Here was the original plan:
Upon arrival, take a train to Orvieto, stay one night there, then rent cars the next day from the Hertz rental location near the Orvieto train station, use the cars for a week at an agriturismo in Tuscany. Early departure from the agriturismo on our last day, drive to the outskirts of Florence, and return the rental cars at a Hertz location (if it exists) where we can catch a bus, train or taxi into Florence. One full day and night in Florence, then take the train to Rome. Two nights there, then fly home.
The US travel agency we're using to book car rentals (which specializes in European car rentals) is advising that we just get the cars at the airport in Rome and drive to Orvieto. They say that Orvieto's Hertz site is small and there is a good chance that even if we reserve 3 automatic transmission cars and get a confirmation, we'll find when we are at the desk that they don't have 3 automatics available. The agency said we're not limited to Hertz if we rent at the airport. We might get better prices with a different company, like Europcar.
Here are my questions:
How is it driving away from FCO in a rental car? We're not fans of big city driving and are nervous about the fact that the signs won't be in English. Given that we're just out at the airport, looking for the exit to get to Orvieto, will we be okay?
In Florence, Europcar has two locations in the city and one at the airport. Can one drive into the two locations in the city without passing through a ZTL? Even if the answer is yes, is it crazy to plan to do that on the day we are there, which is Florence's patron saint festival day? We were told to expect huge crowds and congestion throughout the city that day. Would it be far better to return the cars to the Florence airport location and then catch a bus or cab into the city? Is there another rental agency, besides Europcar, that might have better locations for us in Florence?
Our Florence hotel has parking in a garage for 27 Euro per night, which includes valet service to park and retrieve the cars, and if I read the fine print correctly, this fee includes a 24 hour ZTL pass, so I suppose another choice would be to just keep the cars in Florence and drive to Rome the next day instead of taking the train. We'd plan to return the rental cars at FCO, right were we got them, take a train into the city for our final two days. But would it be a huge mistake to plan to drive into Florence at all on this patron saint festival day? Is our original plan of getting rid of the cars prior to Florence a good one?