Returning a rental car in Rome

That's the best way to do it. For four people, a cab in from the airport isn't a bad deal. I've taken the train from FCO, but I understand cab fare is a flat rate into the old city.

That's a good way to handle it.

We rented a car and returned it to FCO last September. Slow Travel has excellent, detailed instructions on picking up and returning your rental car, including where to get your last tank of gas. We printed out the instructions and I read them to my husband as we drove. Worked out great! I would also recommend looking at the section on road signs and driving and parking in Italy. Have fun!

We picked up our Auto Europe rental at the huge multi agency rental garage right next to the Spanish Steps. It was a piece of cake getting on the freeway from there. It is an easy trip from there to the Trastevere.

Why don't you Google map the area, and also Google map the route into the city to that return rental?

And, are you taking a GPS on your trip? If you buy a GPS here (with EU maps!),and learn how to use it, you will be able to naviagte anywhere, with ease. (But it does not eliminate traffic!)

We used our TOMTOM 920 on our last trip to Portugal and Germany, and it was fantastic.

We are doing the same thing with our AutoEurope rental. We decided to drop ours off at Ciampino to (hopefully) save some time. I'm intrigued by the idea of dropping it off near the Spanish Steps, though. We hadn't considered that as we were trying to avoid the inner-city traffic as much as possible.

Thank you for all of the helpful replies. I will have a GPS with me, and I think it's a great idea to program the AutoEurope closest to the Spanish Steps. I rented it with the car, so it will have to be returned with the car, but I'm sure the taxi driver will know his way to Trastevere.

I'll get a hold of AutoEurope and ask them if their Spanish Steps office observes the mid-day siesta/shutdown.

Melissa, this especially important if you're considering this option. If you get there with the car between 13:00 and 16:00 (1-4 pm), you might not be able to retuen it until after 4 pm. I already checked, and the airports do not close for the mid-day break...cars can be returned anytime the terminals are open.

I check back with the results of my inquiry.

One more thing...I have no vested interest in AutoEurope, but they currently are offering cell phone rentals in Italy with a car rental for $2 a day.

Darryl

Thanks for the heads up on the AutoEurope phone deal, Darryl. I already have a rental with AE so I called them about the phones. The details are: free phone activation and phone rental for 7 days with an AE car rental, then $2/day phone rental thereafter. If you call Italian phone numbers from the Italy-activated phone, it's $.99 per minute outgoing and free incoming. We were considering renting 2 phones so our sons could have one when they went off on their own, so I found out about that also: subsequent phones are $6/day rental and a $30 activation fee (same per-minute rate). That means for our 11-day trip, it would cost us just under $100 for both phones not including airtime. My question to all of you: is there a better deal we could get in Italy by renting a prepaid phone? (NB: Our cell phones do not work in Europe.)

I read some other topics today and made a decision about returning the rental car to Rome that I feel very good about. There is a company called Romecabs that will pick my family up at Ciampino and transport us to our hotel. It's E45 for 2 people and E5 for each additional person.

The reviews for this company are pretty much wonderful, focusing mainly on the owner Stefano who really takes care to make sure his customers are happy. That's good enough for me.

Also, with the ZTL cameras being pretty much everywhere, and not much good info on their whereabouts, I don't even want to travel inside the ring road with the car. Ciampino is located right off the Autostrada so there is no wandering into the forbidden world of cash cameras!

To email Romecabs, the address is romecabs@yahoo.com.