We are a family of five with a 17, 14 & 11yr old. We are traveling by train from Munich to Venice then plan to get a car to visit 5terre where we will park and walk most everywhere, then drive to Rome, to Florence then to the airport in Bologna. When we drive to Rome, where is the best place outside the city to drop off a car? We plan to rent again for our drive to Florence where we will park it, and then will drive on to Bologna airport. We are planning this because we can make our own schedule and it seems to be more cost effective than the trains for 5 people. Is this do-able, or are we nuts? Is there a cost effective way to use the trains for our family of 5? All tips, advice and opinions welcome!
Posted by
Brisbane, Australia
7175 posts
Perhaps this would help ...
Fly Munich to Rome
Drive Rome - Cinque Terre - Florence
Train Florence - Venice - Bologna
As with flights, book train as far as ahead as possible.
Posted by
California 🦋
5210 posts
Mamabeat,
You can easily travel to all the destinations on your list via train & you may take advantage of some of the offer such as:
- Children under 15 travel for free with adult:http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en/Offers/Bimbi-Gratis
- weekend 2 for 1 ( two travel for the price of 1):http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en/Offers/2x1-Special-Offer
- read about other offers here:http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en/Offers
We are traveling by train from Munich to Venice then plan to get a car to visit 5terre where we will park and walk most everywhere, then drive to Rome, to Florence then to the airport in Bologna.
You may want to change your order of travel as it's more efficient to travel in this order:
Venice -> Florence -> CT -> Rome-> Bologna.
You do not need a car in CT, Florence, Rome or Bologna. If you do end up renting a car, do not drive in the cities as you may cross a ZTL (Zona A Traffico Limitato =limited traffic zone) & get a ticket in the mail months after you've returned home. Beware of going over the speed limit also.
You may want to read this for more info: http://accessitaly.com/post/Driving-in-Italy-part-8-e28094-Fines-Avoiding-long-distance-pen-pals-in-fancy-uniforms.aspx
Have a wonderful trip!
EDIT: Here is another article on how to avoid ZTL's: http://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/dont-mess-with-ztl-zones
Here is an article about traffic/speed cameras: http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/driving/traffic_cameras_speeding.htm
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
15156 posts
Is there a reason why you are flying out of BLQ?
Given the proposed itinerary I would do
VENICE > FLORENCE > CINQUE TERRE > ROME and fly back from Rome.
The car is useful only in Tuscany, therefore I would rent in Florence and return either in La Spezia (near Cinque Terre) or Rome.
An alternative would be to rent a car in Venice and drive down to Florence area with the car and keep the car. However in this case you would need to find accommodations outside of Florence in the nearby countryside or at least outside the historical center of Florence which is closed to traffic.
Posted by
693 posts
Do you intend to have any nights in between the places you have listed? Do you intend to have days exploring the Tuscan countryside? Are you just leaving the car in a garage for a number of days in CT and Florence?
If you are only hiring a car to get from Venice--CT-Rome-Florence-Bologna I would seriously reconsider your plans and look at trains.
Posted by
693 posts
The suggestion from Priscilla re children under fifteen being able to travel for free on freccia/IC services is correct. However, we have found every single time we have trained in Italy that 4 supereconomy tickets bought 120 days out are significantly cheaper than the bimbi gratis option.
Posted by
Los Angeles
4389 posts
I had to park near the Duomo and boy was that a disaster getting in and out of the city. Do not do!
Posted by
US Pacific Northwest
10344 posts
you don't want to drive a car in Rome or Florence.