I will be staying in Rome near the Vatican, and will pick up a rental car when I leave Rome heading north. Should I pick up the car in the city at a rental location near the Vatican and drive to the ring road - 0R - should I take a cab to FCO airport to pick up the car for easy accessibility to the big road.
Someone has told me it is worth the cost of a cab ride to FCO because it is so difficult to drive at all within Rome. Thanks for advice.
I would go to the airport. I am not sure exactly where the ZTL (limited traffic zone) is in Rome, and it's probably not near the Vatican, but why take a chance of accidentally driving into the ZTL?
I would avoid back tracking to the airport. We picked up our rental car in Rome when we were heading to Tuscany. Our pickup location was in a different area, but we were able to successfully leave Rome without incident.
We picked up our car Sunday morning so traffic was light. During the week there is more traffic, but nothing unmanageable.
Check the rental offices near Tiburtina station in Rome. Very close to SR5 leading out of the city so driving in Rome would be minimal.
We rented a car from Europcar through Auto Europe across the street from Tiburtina Train Station. The car was brought to the median near the rental outlet and the attendant showed us to the car, unlocked it, and returned to the rental office. We loaded our luggage and were set to go but had no car keys. The attendant adamantly insisted he gave them to me. After 30 minutes frantically searching the car, my purse, the ground under the car, under the seats, the trunk, everywhere possible, the attendant sheepishly retrieved them from his pocket. Once we were off, with the help of my Garmin GPS, getting out of Rome and onto the highway was a breeze!
