parking outside of Rome

Either in Orvieto at the train station or at Rome airport (FCO) terminal parking. You might check the price of tickets from each place into Termini and see which would be less expensive.

Orvieto? It's 80 miles from Rome. 80 miles. I suppose that I could visit Spokane and park my van in Moscow ID. But why would I do that? Maybe if Moscow would be my next stop after departing Rome. Maybe, but not really. So, whenever you visit Manhattan NY for several days, it sounds like the recommendation is to park you rental car in Pennsylvania.

Too bad you already have your hotel in Rome, we stayed in Orte, got a huge suite and they also provided free underground parking. You could park your car at the train station in Orte and travel into Rome by train which is about a 45 minute ride.

The long-term parking at Ciampino (not the main one, Fiumicino) is your best bet. You can use this site (http://easyparking.adr.it/bol3adr/Step1.aspx?cmID=ADW_summer). They have promotional fares as low as € 29 for 7 days (the whole period, not per day).

We parked our car at the train station in Orvieto for four days. It is a free, secure parking lot that was suggested in Rick Steves' tour book. The lot is located below the train station (a bit tricky to find). From there, you take an escalator up to the train station. Even though our car had German plates, we still took tour books and maps off the seats and hid them in the trunk. We bought a local Italian newspaper and put it on the front seat. We then took a one hour train right to Termini station. It was fast and easy and it worked for us. Have a great trip!

Leaving a car for three days in a parking lot could lead to problems, depending on where you park! There are many, many parking garages near the Hotel Sonya. You might look at this post, Parking Options in Rome. There are perhaps 200 garages listed, many on the outskirts of town. If you are lucky and score a "white-lined" parking space, (FREE!) you could leave the van there the entire time. Of course, to find one big enough for a van, the parking Gods would have to be smiling upon you! There are also train stations on the outer parts of town where you can park a van - like say Giustiniana on Via Cassia or Rebbibia, on the east side of town. Then it's an easy train or metro connection into town. Hotel Sonya appears to be adjacent to a ZTL zone so you'd have to be quite careful if you drove in this area. You might read this article, as it has some ZTL maps: ZTL's in Rome. The area also contains many one-way streets, so I'd have my route mapped out in advance. You might also email the hotel and see what garage they work with. And don't forget your International Driving Permit (IDP). Good Luck!

I have exactly the same question - we need to park our minivan for 2 days and we also stay at Hotel Sonya! We drive into Rome (from Tuscany) Aug 28 Sun and leave Aug 30 Tue. On Tue, we will drive to Nice (8-hr drive) and stop by Pisa for lunch. Since I only park for 2-3 days, higher cost is ok. I want to find a garage that is easy to get into city center, easy to get out to drive to Nice, away from city traffic and safe. My questions: 1. Is the airport garage Fiumicino my best bet? 2. Is Sun traffic ok? Should I try to drive into town to drop off my luggage?
3. How is Tue traffic leaving Rome? Do I need to leave at 6-7am to avoid rush hour? I've been to Rome 10 years ago taking train. Any driving tip for driving in Rome? All the driving advice in Rick Steves tourbook sound pretty scary. Does anyone have the list of Italian words and signs I should know for driving there? Thank you!

Amy, Have you read the response in the post above yours? And followed the link, and read that? What Ron (formerly of Rome and now a little further north) does not know about driving in Rome doesn't bear knowing. I suggest you have a trawl round his site and absorb his knowledge. I recommend that you also specifically have a look at this and this . Happy planing...

Sorry I didn't read Ron's links before. I read Ron's links and got reply from Hotel Sonya. They said that Sun has no ZTL zone, so I could drive to the hotel. Tue when I leave Rome, ZTL is for the other direction (going into city center), so I should be fine as well. I am not so sure whether Sun is indeed no ZTL and whether I'd get into ZTL by mistake on Tue. I'll pick a garage from Ron's list. When I asked Hotel Sonya when I should leave on Tue to avoid rush hour, they said 7am. I hope that I can avoid all the traffic and get to Pisa in 3-4 hours that day. Thank you.