Help needed in planning a trip to Italy.

You do not need a car in Florence. Florence is a small compact city and having a car in Florence not needed. You will be spending a lot of money to park the car. You can walk every where you need to go ( I have been twice on the RS Florence tour he used to have). You can take the train from Rome up to Florence which is about one or two hours ( no more than that, can't remember how long the train ride is). And it will leave you at the Florence train station and you can take a cab to your hotel. As for wine tour, look at the RS guide book or go on line to see about the wine tour or contact the hotel for ideas and maybe they have a tour that will pick you up and bring you back to the hotel. Why are you going from Florence down to Monaco and then up to Milan. If you are in Florence you are closer to Milan than you are to Monaco. And again, Milan is a city and a car will not be needed and will spend a lot of money for parking. To be honest, I think you should cut out Monaco as you only plan to stay one nite because of the location of where it is to where Florence, Milan and Venice are and Monaco is too far for only a one nite stay and the cost of a rental car. Look at the train routes and times and you will see it is very efficient to take the train from Rome to Florence to Venice. I will be honest, I don't know about getting to Milan. But each place is a city and a car is not needed and will be a pain and cost to have. Monaco and Nice are nice ( went on the RS France tour) but more time should be spent there than just one nite. I hope this helps with your planning, but of course this is up to you on how you want to plan your time.

Since a car would be useless in Florence, Milan, and Venice, and advance purchase high speed rail tickets are so cheap, I suggest a compromise. Take the train Rome-Florence, 1 hour 20 minutes, 3 times faster than by car. After leaving Florence, (have you heard of ZTL's) rent the car at the Florence airport and drive to Nice & environs (interesting drive if you like an unending stretch of tunnels and bridges). Head back to Milan and drop the car at Milan Malpensa (or other drop off location) take the train into Milan, then take the high speed train to Venice (2 1/2 hours, again 2 to 3 times faster than a car).
The Rome-Florence tickets can be had for 19 euro each, and the Milan-Venice tickets for 9 euro each. Save big bucks by only having the car for 2 days instead of a week. Don't forget, gas ($10/gal) and tolls, and navigation headaches, (and ZTL's).

You really don't need a rental car for the cities you are visiting. In Florence, a car is a liability. Almost all of the entire historic area is in a restricted zone. You cannot drive anywhere inside these zones without a camera capturing a picture of your license plate. Your rental car company will rat you out to the authorities. Very expensive ticket. If you plan ahead, you can take the high speed train from Rome to Florence for as low as 19Euro. Trip takes 1:35hrs. You can't do that with a rental car.

If you want a great experience with wine in Tuscany, we had a wonderful guide, Guido Fratini, who is still doing all kinds of tours through Tuscany. You can visit his website, discover tuscany.biz, and decide what is right for you. We were with another couple, and the four of us went out with Guido for two days, visiting several vineyards, learning about cities such as Sienna, Greve and a Chianti, and having a fabulous meal at one of the wineries. He also connected us with his friend, Paula, who took us through the galleries in Florence and made the experience so much more meaningful!

Margaret:

Staying in an apartment in the Rome area is a good option. We stayed at a B&B 20 miles south, and got to visit a number of great tourist sights in the Rome suburbs; www.olivetreehill.com We took the commuter train into Rome.

I agree with the others in that taking a train to Florence would be much more efficient. A car is not needed within the city. If you want to take a day trip to the hill towns 40-50 miles south, you can easily rent a car in a city location and return it later. Your wine tour has already been addressed. Florence and Tuscany are worthy of more time than you have allotted there.

It's quite a distance over to Nice or Monaco, and quite out of the way. If you want to see a breathtaking scenery, just take a train over to the Cinque Terre cities, west to Pisa and up to La Spezia. You would take a regional train into Cinque Terre, which is not a place for automobiles.

From Cinque Terre, you can easily catch a train up to Milan. Then you can catch a train east to Venice.

One problem with your itinerary is taking the train to Vienna from Venice. The Dolomites and Austrian Alps are in between these two great cities, and they're about 350 miles apart. The trip via ground travel is made by two train trips and a bus ride in between. It is a very difficult trip, and there are no budget airlines flying in between those cities. You might want to check the airfares on Austrian Airlines to see if it's affordable to go there.

I would prefer to go to Rome, Florence, stay 3-4 nights in Chianti doing day trips with a rental car. Then take the trains to Cinque Terre and later over to Venice. Unless you have any reason to go to Nice/Monaco and Vienna, you should save them for another trip.

I prefer to stay in the historic center in Rome, everything is compact and public transportation is cheap and easy if you need it.

The low trainfares mentioned earlier are available online up to 120 days before travel, these tickets sell out fast, and there are lots of restrictions (no changes, if you miss the specific train you need to buy a new ticket).

The train-bus-train trip from Venice to Vienna is long, but not terrible (I did it last year).

Thanks to all for your replies. I will rethink the rental car. Regarding the train from Venice to Vienna. We took it lat September both ways. On they way down to Venice we took the night train and it was a great experience. On they way back to Vienna there was a change of train but it was no big deal.

Having. Hard time deciding where in Rome to stay. Testerverde seems nice. It out of the way. How is the section around the Trevi fountain ?