Rome to Pompeii to Greece

1) Downtown there are several offices depending which company you use.
2) Which port?
3) Brindisi in Puglia (about 5-6 hours SE of Rome). It’s the port with ferries to Patras
4) Yes. Your plan is the worst possible.
(to be continued)

Unless you plan to stay in the Tuscan countryside, you don’t need or want a car in Florence.
From Florence to Rome take a high speed train.
If you are interested in Pompeii only, you can actually visit it from Rome using a high speed train to Naples (70 min) plus a commuter train from Naples to Pompeii Archeological site (another 45 min).
At the end of your visit you can do the reverse and return to Rome.
You can also spend the night in the Naples area (Naples/Sorrento) if you wish to do so. Still you should go from Rome to Naples with a train. Driving in Naples is chaotic.
Flying to Greece is the best way to get there. Rome has the most flight options, therefore you should be in Rome on your last night. If you plan to spend some nights in the Naples area, then I would go from Florence to Naples (by high speed train, about 3 hours), then return to Rome for the last few days of your visit in Italy. From Rome you can then fly to Greece (Athens or, in summer, also other island destinations).
There are also flights from Naples to Greece, but not as many as from Rome.

Thank you! If we do fly where is the best place to get a flight? I did a quick search and I'm seeing it would be Uber $1000 to fly a family of 4 from Rome to Athens... am I just not looking in the right place?

I can definitely see how logistically flying would be easier but cost is why I am looking for the driving and ferry questions...

I agree regarding Florence to Rome, unless you need the car in Tuscany then rail is probably a more efficient solution but I didn’t look up ticket prices and rental rates. You could also take the trains described above from Rome to Pompei and stay in Pompei - there are hotels and guest houses right in town by the archaeological site.

If you want to rent a car leaving Rome there are offices around town, depending on which rental company you use. Sites like Kayak will compare many rental companies, but the cheap ones seem to have a lot of negative reviews. We’re going in January and renting from Avis at their Ciampino Airport office on the east side of Rome and then driving to Pompei and basing there for a few nights.

If you particularly want to take a ferry to Patras you’ll need to drive to Brindisi and return the car there. I don’t know what rail connections to Brindisi are like. But it easyJet appears to have flights from Naples to Athens for less than $100 out through at least June. The travel experience may be unpleasant compared to more expensive airlines but the prices certainly look attractive!

Good luck with the trip!

It’s hard to give advice without knowing dates of travel and exact itinerary. Are you looking for a round trip Italy-Greece-Italy? Or are you looking for flying from Italy to Greece and from there to your home city, which I don’t even know where it is? And where do you plan to go to Greece? Patras to Athens is at least 3 to 4 hours drive, and frankly, driving in Athens is the last thing I’d want to do. I’d rather be a taxi driver in Naples for a year. If you also want to visit some islands, having a rental car may be a costly problem too. Driving from Rome to Brindisi is at least a 6 hour journey plus pit stops (over 550 km=350 miles). Ferrying from Brindisi to Patras takes about 17-18 hours. You depart from Brindisi in the evening and you arrive to Patras in the early afternoon the next day. Ferrying a car across isn’t cheap either, but it varies a lot with the time of travel and the type of vehicle and the ship accommodations. Now in winter you might spend only 400€ for a family of 4 and a compact car, but in the peak of summer prices are almost double. And that is only one way. If you plan to drop your rental car in Greece, there are 600€ to 1000€ international one way drop off fees to be paid to the rental company. If you fly from Italy to Athens round trip in summer expect to pay about $200-300 per person in the peak of summer (August), a bit less off season. You can check air prices on Skyscanner or Kayak. You can fly from Rome to Athens with Aegean Airlines, ITA Airways, Ryanair. You can fly from Naples to Athens with Aegean and Volotea. If you want to save money you should do one country at a time. How about Italy only, or Greece only? You seem to be a young family, so you will have another chance to do the other country in the future. Traveling from Italy to Greece is neither easy nor cheap. There is a lot of water in between the two.

It was 40 years ago, and I’ve traveled all over the world since then, but that trip from Rome to Athens by ferry is etched in my memory banks as one of the most epically awful journeys I’ve ever taken. Pretty much all day in a train to get to the scruffy port of Brindisi. All the bureaucratic hassle of boarding the ferry. Cold, stormy seas overnight. Plenty of seasick passengers. Finally arrival in Patras late the next afternoon. Another couple hours in a rattletrap train to Athens, arriving very late in the evening. My buddy and I were college students used to that kind of travel — I can’t imagine adding to that mix a rental car, children, and trying to see Pompeii on the way! Whatever it would cost you to fly instead, it’s worth it. But I tend to agree with many others on this forum that it’s better to make Italy and Greece separate trips. On the surface, it may seem they’re a good combo — not incredibly far apart in the map, two Mediterranean places with classical history, etc — but they really aren’t. Getting between them isn’t all that easy and they both have so much to see and do that trying to do both with the kind of limited vacation time most of us have, will shortchange both countries.

Month and year of trip? Sun and heat are major factors, especially for 9 and 7 year olds. They are not going to enjoy Pompeii at 95 degrees and full sun, with uneven Roman paving stones and baking heat coming off them. Have you been on Google Maps to see the driving distances you are planning for?

Welcome to this newsboard with your first few posts. Have you been to Europe before? You don't seem to have much experience with planning for a rather complex combination of what is usually several trips by the average family.

Many car rental companies prohibit taking a car on a ferry, or even driving in countries with higher accident rates (of course, they list the countries on your contract ... ) like Greece.

You may also get better advice if you give a sketch of the ENTIRE trip. What's before Florence, and where are you flying home from?