Ending trip in Rome, where to leave rental car and take a train or taxi?

If you are picking up the A1 around the same level as Siena or farther north, many people find it convenient to drop the car at either Chiusi or Orvieto and train in.

Up to you.

I thought dropping my rental car off on Sunday morning at Termini would be a simple process. After all, I had "mapquested" the route, had "turn by turn" instructions, what could go wrong? I mean, Sunday morning, gee, can't be bad traffic, right?

Totally wrong. I turned off the Grand Annulare beltway at 1030AM, had until 1230PM to drop the car off. Ultimately found the dropoff site, and handed the keys to the attendant at 1225PM! I'll never drive in the Rome centro again.

Leave it at the airport, or Orte or Orvieto. Just my 2 cents.

Hi David,

Taking the car directly to Rome's termini Station or even FCO airport. Here you will find some useful info from slow travel with details. http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/driving/car_rental_rome.htm If you leave the car at another town, it will take you a while to get into Rome and sounds quite inconvenient to me...I would say take the highway to Rome's ring road (grande raccordo anulare to the A24 and it is only a short way to Termini Station from the end of the A24.

I agree with others--I think that Orvieto would be the perfect place to leave a rental car--it's a one hour train ride to Rome.

I would return the car at the Rome airport and take a taxi (minivan) to your hotel. It will be difficult to wag two bicycle cases through a train station and onto and off of the train and find a place to stow them. You will get no assistance from train conductors or station "porters". There is no such thing as a luggage cart in an Italian train station. Try getting a dog in a crate on and off a train without any help... You also have to consider hours of operation for your car rental agency. Only the airport and train station locations will have extended hours and be open on Sundays. I agree with not driving into Rome's city center. There are restricted traffic zones and passing into them will get you a stiff fine. I have friends who live in Italy who have told me that it once took them an hour and a half to find their way out of Rome and that was with a GPS.

"I'll never drive in the Rome centro again. Leave it at the airport, or Orte or Orvieto."

Tony, if it makes you feel any better, you're not the first one here to be blind-sided by the difficulty of driving in Rome.

Leave the car in Orvieto & spend the day there (it's a great town) & then take the train to Rome in the late afternoon. It's a little over an hour from Rome. I would not attempt to drive in Rome. While on paper (mapquest) it seems straight forward, it's a totally different ball game once you're there.

I dropped my leased car at the airport. It was my only option for Rome.

When we dropped off, the person we were supposed to deliver the car to was nowhere to be found. We searched all over, with assistance from others in the airport. We finally connected after an hour. The guy insisted he was there the whole time, but I think he really just forgot about us and left (or didn't show up) until he got a call.

If I were renting, I would drop in Orvietto and take the train into Rome. You would save a lot of time and hassle getting in and out of the airport.

We have dropped a rental car 2x now at FCO Airport and then took a taxi to our hotel. Very easy to do.

Hello All,
I truly appreciate all the great responses that I've received, and hopefully others have been helped too.
At this point, we're leaning towards dropping the car off at the airport and taking a taxi to Rome. If we didn't have the two bicycle soft packs plus our two carry-ons, I'd take take the train in a heartbeat. I would like to continue get peoples thoughts on this issue.
Regards,
David