We attempted to drive to the Accademia in Florence. The roads are confusing in the old center. We never made it We returned our rental car and took a taxi. The lady at our inn said people from Florence never drive in the old part of town but take a bus. Always learning! 😀
Posted by
Surrey, UK
573 posts
Be prepared for a ZTL fine in due course - you were driving in a permit only zone.
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
17545 posts
The lady at our inn said people from Florence never drive in the old
part of town....
...and that especially goes for tourists. The advice on these forums for YEARS has been not to drive in Florence if humanly possible; here's a thread from back in 2009 on the subject:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/why-you-don-39-t-want-to-drive-in-florence
And more from one of the tourism websites:
https://www.visitflorence.com/tourist-info/driving-in-florence-ztl-zone.html
Will cross fingers that you receive fewer rather than more ZTL fines! Hope you otherwise enjoyed fascinating Florence! 🤞
Posted by
Arctophilia, Northamptonshire, England
35723 posts
or to be accurate, a zone of limited traffic - only vehicles with permits are allowed in a ZTL, it is enforced with cameras.
Your rental car company will get a request to tell the police who rented the car and you will get a charge from the rental company of around €40 on your credit card for each time.
If you passed more than one ZTL camera you will pay another fine to the city, and they work hard to get their money. It can take over a year for the fine to reach you, and they are not cheap.
There is a current thread of somebody in a similar situation in Rome. They got 4 tickets in an hour. Actually, looking for it from yesterday, it has been deleted. Perhaps they were embarrassed or didn't get the agreement they wanted. Too bad - it was a good example.
This isn't judgement of you - just laying out the facts. In order to get where you were trying to get to you will almost certainly crossed into a ZTL.
When you say you never made it, was that because you couldn't find it, or did you see the ZTL - no entry signs and keep trying to find another way in?
Posted by
Wengen
3393 posts
We attempted to drive to the Accademia in Florence. ... We never made
it
That is entirely as expected. In European old town centres a car is the slowest and most inconvenient way of getting around. When we were in Florence we just walked everywhere. No problem with restrictions, no need to find a parking spot, and usually faster.