Rent a car or is there another way??

Rent a car only when you are visiting places without a train station. Pisa, Siena and all the Cinque Terre Villages have one.

It's not "some cities", it's all settlements. Only those living inside historical centres can drive into, so no: you can't park and walk away. At the very least you'll have to park out of the city center, pay and then either walk through the walls or take a bus.

Sorry, but a private guide for what?

Thank you Dario, we were wondering about hiring a guide to take us to places like Pisa, Siena etc... but from what you said, it sounds like that doesn't make sense. We could just get to those places by train and then do a walking tour, or our own tour. When it comes to other 'settlements' without train stations is where we either need a private driver to get us there, or we rent a car to get there?

Rent a car only when you are visiting places without a train station.
Pisa, Siena and all the Cinque Terre Villages have one.

Florence has great train service as well. Those glasses of wine you want to enjoy? That's one of the reasons we base in places with train stations. And as Dario said, no, you can't leave the car just anywhere for your sightseeing. Granted, lots of our posters have rented cars for exploring rural Tuscany and its smaller towns and done just fine (with research in advance!!) but there's no reason to have one for Florence, the Cinque Terre, Pisa and Siena if that's where you're most likely to explore. It would be more hinderance than benefit. If you intend to do a lot day-tripping and to the locations listed, I'd base in a town or city with train service.

Many smaller villages thta don’t have a train station are served by buses.
The app rome2rio is not bad for finding your way from A to B, and generally gives links to bus timetables.

hey bari
Do you mean in a few days you will be in Italy or next year 2019? If you flying from USA make sure you get an international driving permit (IDP) at AAA, costs about $25 and 2 passport photos. All who is driving will need one, rental agency may ask but if stopped by the policeman definitely will ask, fine and may take car. You can look it up. Have a great trip.
Aloha

2018! We leave a week Tuesday. We are booked for 7 nights (Oct 1-8th) in at Fienile Le Rose, Casa Vacanze 'Gli Spillocchi (via valterrana 77, gambassi terme). Oh, so there might be a bus option? That would be good!

I was reading conflicting reports about some saying we need the international drivers licence and others saying we don't. We are all Canadian.

ViaMichelin.com estimates the driving time from Gambassi Terme to the destinations you mentioned as:

Florence: 1 hr. 2 min.
Siena: 1 hr. 3 min.
Pisa: 1 hr. 7 min.
Monterosso al Mare (Cinque Terre): 2 hr. 39 min.

Those times do not include any stops, getting lost, looking for parking or walking from the parking lot to the actual tourist sights. And the driving time from the farm to specific places in the destination cities may be somewhat longer.

I've never driven in Europe, but I wouldn't stay in such an isolated rural location if I wanted to visit the listed destinations. Nor would I want to spend over an hour driving to Florence (and paying for parking) in order to get a train to travel elsewhere. A taxi would be quite expensive and wouldn't be faster than driving yourself, but a taxi would mean there'd be no need for a designated driver.

I'd prefer to split my time between Florence and the farm, and use the time in Gambassi Terme to visit some of the small nearby towns. For example, San Gimignano is just under a half hour away.

We have always rented a car for rural Tuscany to visit the smaller villages. Can’t imagine waiting for buses over and over. And trains don’t go most of the places we like to visit. Print out Rick’s European road signs, tape them to the dashboard. Rent through Autoeurope.com and get an IDP for each driver at AAA.

It’s a translation of your drivers license for what country you visit. I would look it up if Canadians need one, some posters from Canada will tell you. But to be on the safe side get one. Don’t be short on Sherlock.
Aloha

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the tips and comments!

Bari, you didn’t leave too much time from seeking advice to your trip date.

1. Yes, I think you’ll need a car. The place at which you are staying is in the middle of nowhere. How are you getting there? Taking a taxi to Florence might cost you €100 or more each way. Check rental rates through AutoEurope or Kemwel — prices and service are very good and both are recommended by many on this board. It’s also advisable, for peace of mind, to rent a car and accept the €0 deductible insurance. The rental car insurance offered by credit cards is normally not available in Italy. It would be cheaper to rent a car for a week than taking expensive cab rides.

2. Navigating is easy if you have a GPS or smart phone AND a Michelin map of Italy. Driving into the Centro Historico is not possible. Cities in Italy have traffic zones limited to residents only called ZTL’s. If you don’t see the sign and drive into one, the license plate of the vehicle is photographed; your rental car company will be asked to supply your name and address. You will be charged a research fee by the company and then you will receive a summons with a hefty (€200-300) fine from the municipality. If you approach the town, find out where there is parking available so you won’t drive into a ZTL. Use Google Maps to locate them before you go. If you have a smart phone, Google Maps works well and so does Waze for navigation. You can search on line to see what Italian road signs are like. Parking in cities is expensive.

3. The law in Italy states that each driver of a car needs an International Driver Permit. Most likely it’s available from the Canadian Auto Club. If you are asked for it by the police, you could be fined several hundred Euros if you don’t have one.

Please send me a PM if you have any further questions. If you use the search function on this site, you can learn more about ZTL’S, intl. driver permits, road signs, etc.

The law in Italy states that each driver of a car needs an International Driver Permit

The law in Italy states that each driver who doesn't have an EU driving license needs an IDP. I know Bari is from Canada, but future readers may be from european countries. There are so many conflicting reports on the web re the need of IDPs because Of this.

An US citizen in the Army could live in Germany, Get a german license and legally drive in Italy without an IDP. Same for a Canadian going to college in France.

Yikes! You really did leave it late in the game to figure out your transport. Taxis would be prohibitively expensive for long distances and buses inconvenient from a remote location so I'll agree with Philip that a car is really a necessity for where you're staying. I can't even find anything online about the accommodation you've listed, and am curious how you planned to get there? Does it provide parking? Anyway, take him up on his kind offer to answer any questions, and start your research about ZTLs, signage and whatnot sooner versus later. Looks like your closest train station is Certaldo, and that might be useful for getting in and out of Florence (drive and park at the station).

Just as a note on your previous question about parking just anywhere, I just saw this post on TA this morning:

"We arrived very late in Modena with sleeping children and bags, we parked in a street that seemed fine as many cars were already parked there. Today our car is gone!!!! Had this happened to anyone?"

That unfortunate poster likely parked in a ZTL or other restricted spot so it's prudent, and much less expensive where fines are concerned, to understand in advance where you are or are not allowed to drive/park your car. :O)

i'm pretty sure Florence is the closest to where we're staying

Did you look at Google maps? Your accommodations aren't convenient to the places you mentioned and CT really is way too far to go for a day trip.

I did a quick check of the place you are staying. The good news is it is out in the countryside, so you'll be able to see the charming rural areas of the Tuscan region. They bad news is that is looks like it is off the beaten path and not served by rail or bus.

When you chose this place, did you check into transportation to it? Did you check its location against the places you want to visit?

You've listed a laundry list of places in Tuscany you want to visit. You'll be going from pillar to post to fit all that in. You really need to scale back your itinerary.

I don't see any way to get around without renting a car. We loved the freedom it provided us to explore the nooks and crannies of Tuscany. I found driving pleasant and had no problems with signage, and ZTLs. However, you need to do some woodshedding before you leave. There's tons of helpful information on the web. Can you drive a car with a manual transmission? It is much easier and usually cheaper to rent one.

I hope you have a great time!

No way would I stay at Gambassi Terme without a car.

To avoid traffic snarls at rush hour and parking problems in a big city like Florence, you might want to consider driving from Gambassi T. to Castelfiorentino (maybe 10-15 min drive) and taking the train from Castelfiorentino to Florence (~45 min by train) but even for that, you need a car to get to Castelfiorentino.

you might want to consider driving from Gambassi T. to
Castelfiorentino (maybe 10-15 min drive) and taking the train from
Castelfiorentino to Florence

Roberto, in your highly respected opinion, is there an advantage to this station versus Certaldo? Or are they a horse apiece? They look like they're almost the same distance from the poster's location but Castelfiorentino might be larger or be easier to access? Just curious. :O)

You are all right! We totally left this transportation issue to the last minute. We started planning this trip last year at this time and did lots of research of places in Tuscany, location (general) and distances between where we thought we were staying and where we want to go. We booked this place in January but only this past weekend got the 'exact address' (though can't find it on our google maps so have emails to the owner and I'm sure all will be fine). We always pretty much knew that we needed to rent a car when we were there and basically as we got closer and started having conversations and hearing about the difficulties people have with tickets etc...all of us really decided we didn't want to drive. So basically, stuck our heads in the sand and focused on the fun stuff ignoring the reality that we'd soon be 1 week out from out trip and have to deal with it! lol

I really appreciate all of your comments, suggestions and tips. Thank you thank you thank you! We checked CAA today and it's $25 for the license and $17 for passport photo's which are needed. It can be done on the spot so we'll arrange that this week. I'm thinking now that maybe the best idea is when we are done in Rome, we take the train to the Rome airport and rent the car there. Then, put the address into GPS and drive to our accommodation, instead of taking the train from Rome to Florence and trying to figure out what train station is going to be outside the ZTL (it also sounds like it might be cheaper than 4 of us paying for the one way train ticket to Florence from Rome and then renting the car).

When we are leaving Tuscany, we are going to Venice. Do you think it would be an 'easy' drive to Venice (and drop the car off there) or should we be driving back to Rome airport, drop the car off and then train to Venice? Thank you again for your time!

This is where we are staying

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/VacationRentalReview-g1028659-d6479748-Gli_Spillocchi_Casa_Le_Rose-Gambassi_Terme_Tuscany.html

Do not rent the car at the Rome airport! Way too far out of your way. I'd take the train to a less chaotic location (Viterbo? Orvieto? Siena? and rent the car there. Hopefully someone else can advise the best place.

@Kathy
Castelfiorentino and Certaldo are exactly equidistant from Gambassi T., and both stations are easily accessible, parking is next to the station in both cases, therefore either station would work.

However Castelfiorentino is one stop (8 minute) closer to Florence (the train to Florence comes from Siena and stops in Certaldo then in Castelfiorentino), therefore by choosing Castelfiorentino one would could sleep an extra 8 minutes and still make the same train. Also by catching the train at the closer Castelfiorentino station one would save a whopping 60 cent each way (€1.20 round trip), almost the cost of a cappuccino at a bar in Florence (consumed while standing up).

Most rental car agencies have offices near Tiburtina rail station. From there it’s pretty easy to exit Rome on the A4 without having to contend with too much traffic. Much easier than 4 of you going out to FCO.

Also by catching the train at the closer Castelfiorentino station one
would save a whopping 60 cent each way (€1.20 round trip), almost the
cost of a cappuccino at a bar in Florence (consumed while standing
up).

Well that explains it, especially if the cuppa comes with a wee biscuit. Castelfiorentino it is!

First thing you need to do is read this, then download their PDF. There's plenty of info and signage for driving in Italy.

https://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/dont-mess-with-ztl-zones

Second, rent a gps in your language, make sure you're familiar with it before you leave the car rental lot.

Since you're driving for the first time, use Via Michelin and print out the directions to the towns you wish to visit. I know it's redundant, but if you have an idea of where you're going, you'll have a slight head start of what you need to look for.

Rent the car from Tiburtina, it's a 10 minute cab ride which should cost C$ 15-20. Very easy access to the highway.

Drop the car in Venice, there's no point in backtracking. Just observe all speed limits.
After a week driving, you should be familiar with the roads.

For wineries in the area, look around Montesperoli. Check with your host.

Where are you flying into/out of?

Naples? Take the Curreri Viaggi bus to Sorrento.

Edit timetable.

http://www.curreriviaggi.it/autolinee/images/AUTOLINEE_CURRERI.pdf

Rome? Taxi-Roma Termini. Train Roma Termini- Napoli Centrale, then either a private transfer to Sorrento €90-120 or the Circumvesuvian train to Sorrento.

Second, rent a gps in your language, make sure you're familiar with it before you leave the car rental lot.

This is a good suggestion. If you already have a Garmin, consider buying the Italy/Greece map SD card. It will cost less than renting a GPS.

The added bonus is that you can find and save places before you leave. We entered several locations once we got the card. When we picked up our rental car, we plugged in the Garmin, changed from miles to kilometers and pulled up the saved address to our agriturismo. The Garmin took us there with no problems! We also took a great map that we used in conjunction with the Garmin.

hey bari
so happy your IDP is taken care of. Listen to the posters here about not going to airport to pick up car. They may lots of stick shifts, specify what you want, plus big enough for 4 adults and luggage. Hopefully in Sorrento you can try the sfogliatelle, Naples breakfast pastry. Maybe a tour enogastronomictour.it click English and program, read reviews and email them if interested. Couple places from friend: casalevillarena.com for theme dinners, latagliata.com family style what mama cooks, davincenzo.it restaurant in a cave, dessert tray to die for. getyourguide.com things to do if interested. Don’t forget to try lemonicello, lemons lemons everywhere. Maybe a boat ride, check tourist info kiosk in town, walk, people watch, enjoy. Sent you message, upper right hand corner on website. With all the research you’ve done here’s more. :)
Aloha