Traveling with rental car from San Gimignano to Florence on Tuesday, 16May.
Four of us are going for day trip to Florence. Know how to book tickets at Academia and Duomo Museum.
What is best way to get into town? Heard to park outside Florence and take taxi.
Take a look at these suggestions offered by Roberto to another forum member today:
Only drive if you are very good with directions and have an understanding of exactly where any ZTL zones are.
A ZTL fine or multiple ZTL fines all occurring due to the same mis-turn would be my fear.
If you don't want to take a bus then driving into an area that is far enough away to avoid the city's ZTL's zones and taking a taxi from there is also a good plan.
Personally, I wouldn't drive - I would take the bus/train... But, if you really want to drive it, set your SATNAV for the train station and park in one of the car-parks there. It's a fairly quick walk almost anywhere from the strain station.
After all the posts on this forum about ZTL fines, I would not get within 30 miles of Florence in a rental car. For that matter, I would not drive in Italy at all, and not just because of ZTLs. I have driven in eight or nine countries in Europe, including Ireland twice and Portugal, which have a reputation as high risk. For a day tip, I definitely would look for a taxi into town if not take the bus form S.G. That's just my view, your tolerance for risk might be higher.
We spent 8 nights in two locations in Tuscany last May. We had a car. One of our accommodations was an agriturismo 18 km from Florence. Having been there before (no car) there was no way I was driving into Florence. We drove to the closest train station to the agriturismo and took the train from there. No worries about accidentally driving into a ZTL that way. Parking outside Florence and taking a taxi would work if you have some way to call for a taxi. Since you'll have a car in Italy I advise you to familiarize yourself with what a ZTL sign looks like. I think every town in Tuscany has ZTL's.
Whether you want to drive to Florence or take the bus from Poggibonsi is up to you. The warning you receive here about the dangers of the ZTL are way overblown. ZTLs are well signaled, there is a big visible camera apparatus on top, and there is a bright red light when it is in effect. People who go through those entry points regardless of all of that are individuals who should not be allowed to drive anywhere. I gave the directions in the post linked above. That is the best solution for parking for someone coming from San Gimignano. I would not suggest you try to park near the train station, that would be more complicated and it will increase the time necessary to get there, and frankly unnecessarily.
