parking in Florence

Go here: http://translate.google.com Paste the website address into the Google Translate box, select Italian (to English) and click Translate. Not a perfect translation but should help. You have to repeat the process for each webpage.

Kathy, Could you clarify a few points on your travel plans? Why is it necessary to park the car in Florence? Where will you be heading when you return from Rome? As you may know, Florence is one of the worst places to drive with respect to ZTL areas, so it's important to choose the parking area well to minimize exposure to these. The Firenze Parcheggi site appears to offer 13 different areas, but I haven't checked to determine which one would be most suitable (I can manage with Italian to some extent). The Santa Maria Novella location would probably be the most convenient as it's at the station, but it also appears to have somewhat expensive charges. One other point to mention about driving in Italy, is that EACH driver will require the compulsory International Driver's Permit, which must be used in conjunction with your home D.L. A GPS along with a good Map would also be a good idea. Cheers!

Thank you for the tip regarding translating the entire websitewhat a great tool! If I am reading it correctly, it seems there is no overnight parking unless you have a month's parking lease. We are staying for the bulk of our week at a "B & B" 15 km SW of Florence. Our plan was to spend one full day in Florence, drive back to the B & B, then spend the next morning again in Florence before taking the high speed train to Rome for two days. After Rome we will come back to our B & B (we are staying there as part of a package and decided to go ahead and pay for the two nights in Rome in order to have enough time therenot ideal, but the overall savings still makes the package worthwhile.) The B & B's website tells me that the nearest train station to them is 10 km away in Montelupo Fiorentino. I have looked at schedules on trenitalia.com and the train to Florence takes one hour from there and the departure schedule is not the best for what we want to do in Florence (and making reservations for sights that require one). Plus I am not sure how to determine if we can park overnight in Montelupo Fiorentino either. So I was hoping that we could drive ourselves to Florence since our package includes a rental car. The nearest town to our B & B is Montagnana, so if anyone has any suggestions as to the best way to travel to Florence I would welcome your input. An email to the B & B has not yet been answered, but I only sent it two days ago. Thank you too for the suggestions regarding driving. We are all set with our international driver's licenses and have a GPS with Europe maps, but I would appreciate your opinions on who publishes the best maps for driving. Thank you!

A dumb question, but since you have a car, why drive somewhere, abandon the car, and pay to ride a train? Florence to Rome is easy in three hours, even if you stay on the speed limit on the freeway. There's plenty of parking right near Termini, and if you come into the city from the east, you only have a couple of turns including the one leaving the freeway. A couple of the hill towns are close to the track in case you wanted to make a quick stop to snoop around.

Driving in to Florence from the S.W. is probably the hardest direction with lots of traffic jams for the commuters - very much a madhouse. S.E. is relatively easy with much lighter traffic. Italy has reverse traffic patterns than the US. In the US, commuters leave the city for the suburbs at the end of the work day. Italy doesn't have suburbs as we know them. So people return to the city at the end of the day.

Another thing I would recommend, for anyone driving here, is to find a website that explains rules of the road and signage just to get familiar with these. It's not really that hard and may save some confusion when you get on the road.
Just as an example, while on the autostrada you need to have lights on. No matter what time of day. Coming from the states you wouldn't even think about that. ( I still forget half the time after 8 months).

Parking in Florence = Expensive. Here is another idea. Drive to Orvieto and park for free behind the train station in the enormous lot. The commute to Roma is only 75-90 minutes.
Buon viaggio,

"A dumb question, but since you have a car, why drive somewhere, abandon the car, and pay to ride a train?" because short Regionale trains are inexpensive and not worth the risk of running afoul of the ZTL or dealing with driving in Florence. When I was near Sam Gimignano last year we parked in Certaldo and took the train into Florence for a day. Parking at Certaldo was free and the train was just a few euros each. Kathy, it sounds like the best solution for you would be to find a parking lot on the outskirts of town and then maybe taxi or bus to the city center. I agree that if you are staying 15km away, it seems silly to take an hour train ride. I wish I knew of specific lots to tell you or direct you to. I know Piazzale Michelangelo has free parking and it's outside the ZTL with good bus access to the center, but I don't know if parking is allowed overnight. If no one here has any ideas, I would post at the Trip Advisor forum too. Whatever you do, I would not even consider driving into the center of Florence, for many reasons.

Thanks to everyone for some really great suggestions. Can anyone confirm that we can park overnight at Orvieto or Rome's Termini station? Or how much parking costs at Termini? Thanks!

This sounds retarded. Turn in your car at the Florence airport and take a taxi or bus to the train station. Make another car reservation for your return to Florence, again picking up at the airport. By the time you pay two days unused rental, plus parking, plus a fine for possibly entering the ZTL, it will more than make up for the extra cost of a second rental period. The same thing goes for driving to Rome, where a car is a useless hindrance.