Help with Florence and Renting car driving in Tuscany for 3 days.

We picked up a Hertz car (rented through AutoEurope.com) on Sansovino in Florence. It was about a 2 mile taxi ride from the train station. They gave us instructions on how to go south avoiding the ZTL. After a week of traveling through Tuscany (and a day trip to Venice), we turned the car in at Orvieto's Hertz office across the street from their train station. It was just over an hour on the local train into Rome Termini.
We were staying at an agriturisimo outside of San Gimignano and Certaldo while doing day trips. The distances from hilltown to hilltown are not very far throughout Tuscany. The roads are somewhat crooked, but well paved and well marked.

You state that you want to drive the Chiantigiana, SR 222. Then you mention being in San Gimignano and Volterra which are not on 222 rather to the west. There are so many charming, less touristed towns and villages to visit, dine and stay on 222. Is it a matter of time that you immediately head west to San Gimi and Volterra? This all seems impossible. Then heading east to Montalcino? It seems like a lot of back tracking. How much time do you to plan to spend in the towns on 222 such as Greve, Panzano, Castellina, Radda, Gaiole?? And you did not mention Siena. Or are you only driving past them?

I wasn't which towns to stop in or which ones to skip and the best routes to take. We did plan to skip Siena because we did spent a afternoon there on our 1st visit. Trying to make the best use of our 3 days before Rome. Thanks for your help.

I believe the only car rental in Orvieto is Hertz. I would check with Hertz to see which locations in Florence allow 1-way car rentals to Orvieto. I know you can no longer book through Autoeurope for this route.

An alternate idea would be to stay 3 nights in an agriturismo somewhere near Radda or Greve. That would save a move. You could still see San Gimignano and Volterra, plus drive SR222. We stayed just outside Greve and visited everything you mentioned. It was in December and we spent a morning in Radda and had it all to ourselves - no other tourists were there.

Your plan is workable. We loved Volterra.

Thanks will do some more work on these 3 days and pick a base. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

Autoeurope stopped using Hertz in Orvieto because of complaints. However there is excellent service in Chiusi; office a half block from the station. Open Mon-Sat 9:30-12:30AM; first train to Rome at 10:54AM. Open 3 to 7PM Min-Fri.+

sis,

I assume you're aware of the usual caveats regarding driving in Italy, such as the compulsory International Driver's Permit and the ZTL areas. If not it would be prudent to get up to speed on those.

You may find this recent thread helpful - https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/italian-car-rental-tickets .

You may find this recent thread helpful

No, that recent thread is not helpful. It was a first time post by someone who came here only to gripe. We have absolutely no details about where the infraction occurred, therefore it provides no useful information other than to make the uninitiated unnecessarily anxious.

Every place the OP has mentioned has well marked ZTLs that are easily avoided. Just look for the signs. The only part that will take a little concentration is when renting the car in Florence, but even then the rental office will give you clear instructions on how to exit the city without going through a ZTL.

You can also use common sense as a backup. Are you visiting a hill town like Volterra or Radda or San Gimignano? See that big wall that surrounds the town? See all the parking lots outside the wall? That's a darn good indication anything within the wall is ZTL. Play it safe and use those obvious parking lots outside the wall and walk into town.

We spent 10 days driving all around Tuscany, seeing everything on your list but Orvieto. I did a little homework, used my common sense and strictly obeyed the speed limits. We had a wonderful time and had no surprises when I got home.

"No, that recent thread is not helpful. It was a first time post by someone who came here only to gripe."

That thread contained information similar to many others, and was only an example of some of the issues when driving in Italy. There are many other similar threads on the forum which contain more detailed information. The point is that there are some things to be aware of, and IMO it's better to mention these in advance rather than having people "gripe" afterwards because they didn't know.

In the other thread, you said "Hey OP, if you had joined and posted BEFORE you went to Italy, we could have provided you with lots of free information that would have helped you avoid fines." That's simply what I was trying to do with the comments I posted.

That thread contained information similar to many others...

Then, those other threads would be the more appropriate to link to. My concern with the thread in question is that it has to potential of raising unwarranted fear in those who are thinking about driving in Italy. It would be hard to put the true risk in perspective.

The OP of the thread you linked to did not provide any other information. We don't know where the infractions occurred. We don't know their level of knowledge about ZTLs and how to avoid them. There have been similar threads to that. In most instances, the problem was because the poster was clueless. They made a boneheaded mistake and want to blame others or claim it is some sort of "racket".

I choose not to drive in large cities in Europe, including those in Italy. It's not only ZTLs that I'm avoiding. I'm also avoiding congested traffic and expensive parking. That's why we left our car back at our agriturismo and took the bus on our visit to Florence.

Really, you have to be really inattentive and unprepared to stumble into a ZTL in the smaller towns of Italy. I lose patience with the Chicken Littles who overstate the situation.

Doug,

Thanks for the additional comments. It was late when I posted last night and I was getting tired. I didn't have the patience to search all the relevant posts on this topic, but figured the one I linked would suffice.