Car rental return in Sicily

I’ve driven in Palermo and I did not find it challenging during the midday hours. Commute time has lots of bumper to bumper traffic. It depends on your level of comfort driving in big city traffic. If you have no problems driving in Manhattan you can drive in Palermo. If you are comfortable only driving in American suburbs, freeways, or country highways, then don’t drive in Palermo, at least not at commute time.

But which office exactly are you planning to return it to? If you return the car at the airport it is no problem, but then you. We’d a train or bus from there (or taxi if you prefer it comfort especially with luggage).

Most offices in Palermo are by the port, not by the train station. There is a broad avenue all along the shore, driving is not hard there, but beware of the limited-traffic area immediately inland.

We rented from Europcar (booked through autoeurope) last May. Picked up in Catania downtown office and dropped off in Palermo office behind the train station, at noon on Tuesday (May 31). I did all the driving. Downtown Palermo was pretty bad, I am an experienced Boston driver and have driven in Naples so I'd say Palermo is between the 2. When we got to the front of the train station, my daughter was able to jump out, walk a large city block around to the back of the station to figure out exactly where we needed to drop off, and walk back, by the time we crawled a half block. We then made our way to the back parking lot for drop off. We grabbed a taxi at the front of the train station to our hotel a few miles away. I was relieved to drop off the car and be done with it, not much fun but I would consider doing the same thing again.

Here's a couple of other observations:
Palermo city offices (and everywhere else in Sicily) close in the afternoon. We knew we had to get to the office before 12:30pm (or 1pm?) and that was a bit stressful because traffic was so heavy the last few miles.

I chose not to drop it off at the Palermo airport because I had heard it's quite expensive to get to the city from the airport. It turns out if you're willing to take public bus/transit, it's not too bad, but I'm still glad we dropped off downtown and took a taxi with our luggage.

My brother dropped off a car at Hertz downtown office in Palermo the same day (not at the train station) he unfortunately got stuck in traffic and arrived after they closed for lunch. He spent a rather harrowing few hours trying to maneuver through the city (dropping off my sister to the hotel) before finally being able to drop off the car in the late afternoon.

Given how easy it easy it is to take the train from Cefalu to Palermo, I don’t see the benefit in driving to Palermo. You’re just paying an extra day for the privilege of the hassle. Are you planning on day trip driving from Cefalu even? If not then you’re shaving 3 days off that rental by dropping it upon arrival.

Thanks for all the feedback. It sounds like it will just be easier to drop off the car in Cefalu and take a train to Palermo. :) We will be taking one day trip from Cefalu to Trabia to connect with relatives, but after that we will return the car.