Florence rent-a-car location for easy travel to Sienna

It's either Avis or Hertz that has a rental place near the train station which is outside the no traffic zone. Be advised an automatic is not always available even if that is what your reservation states and returning a car during morning rush hour is only for the truly demented.

Ha! Thanks for the tips, especially the rush-hour thing. I'll be sure to sleep in that day.
Also, I have no trouble with the manual transmission, but can you comment on how easy it is to get from the train station out of the city going south to Sienna. That's the only part of the trip I have any concerns about. (I assume you mean Santa Maria Novella station, right?)

Are you only planning to go to Siena? If so, why not take the bus? It would be less stressful and cost less. On the other hand, if you need a car for multiple destinations and/or multiple days, a car would be better. We stayed just outside of Siena and drove to Florence to turn our car in. We did it at the airport so we wouldn't have to worry about the ZTLs.

Hi Wayne, We rented a car in Florence last month from Europcar. We arrived at the train station and it was about a 4-5 minute walk to the Europcar station. The lady was extremely friendly and helpful (and she spoke 5 languages fluently!). We were given very easy and clear directions out of town (we were headed in the direction of Siena) and experienced absolutely no problems. PS - before we arrived my husband used the google street view to 'look' at the route we would take to walk to Europcar. He knew exactly where to go by recognizing the landmarks - it was very easy. Have fun!

Thanks for all the great suggestions! I have gone on Google Maps to scout the route from near the train station, but it can't really tell you what the traffic is like... Hearing that it's not all chaos, as others on this site have said, goes a long way.