Sardinia Transport Conundrum

Just got back from a week in Sardinia. I took my car on the ferry, so we didn´t rent one. But I did notice a lot of cars with "Noleggio" on them. Small local companies it seems, not the big rental companies I know of.

I googled noleggio auto in Porto Torres and it seems there were several offices. For example this one. On their page they write:

Porto Torres
Via Nazionale, 97 – Tel. +39 079 291113

De Lunes a Viernes: de 08:30 a 12:30 / de 15:30 a 18:30 (hasta el 30/04)
De Lunes a Viernes: de 08:00 a 13:00 / de 15:30 a 19:00 (del 01/05 al 31/10)

Sábados: de 8:30 a 12:30 (hasta el 30/04)
Sábados: de 8:00 a 13:00 (del 01/05 al 10/31)

Domingos y festivos: cerrado

Nota: para entregas y reentregas del coche en la agencia de Porto Torres, los Sábados por la noche y el Domingo, hay un suplemento fijo de 30,00 euros (IVA incluido)

We were in PT just for one night as we had to take the ferry at 8am. We did visit the beach there, which was really nice.

There’s also an English-language website - I wondered why a Sardinian company had a website in Spanish, but I imagine that it came up because the previous responder in in Spain?

Sorry my bad, didnt even realize that. I just knew it wasnt in Italian.

If you don’t mind spending 60-70€ you could take a taxi or a private driver to Alghero-Fertilia airport. I don’t think Bolt provides service in Italy and Uber is only a regular limo service.

At the end of your Sardinia visit, will you be departing from Porto Torres, or another location? If that departure place doesn’t have a car rental office, then you’ll be doing the car situation in reverse, dropping it off then using other transportation means to get to your departure place.

Visiting Sardinia back in April, we rented from Noleggiare, a company we’ve used on the mainland and now on Sardinia. They do have an office in Sassari, although we flew in and out of Cagliari, and rented there. They’ve got a big sale on rental prices now.

If you decide to take the bus to Sassari it's ok for a wander around and a meal and an overnight, a bit grittier than Alghero or Olbia but worth a look. We stayed there a couple of nights.
https://slowtravelitalyspain.blogspot.com/2024/06/sardegna-in-may-day-7-sassari.html

Apparently there is a train to Sassari too. I did that Noleggiare has a rental office in Sassari as does Europecar. Is Porto Torres worth a stay?

Thanks so much for this reference. There is indeed a rental in Porto Torres

www.noleggiora.it/en/

Is Porto Torres worth a stay?

I would lean towards the No.

We stayed there because we had a 7:45 ferry and they ask the people with cars to be there two hours early. If you have an early ferry, it might be worth staying. If your ferry is in the afternoon, you should have time to return your car and make it to the ferry.

You don't say what time of year you are going to be there. The Spiaggia di Balai is nice, but I'm guessing that you probably don't want to go to the beach.

There is an 11th century church that is nice, but the visit is short.

Glad you found a potential solution, RailRider. It looks like two different companies, each named with a variation on the Italian word for car rental. Noleggiora seems to have teal as a color theme for the company, but Noleggiare uses a vibrant pink.

To follow up, there are actually two different Italian rental companies with very similar names : Noleggiaro, and something else. I sometimes get one when I was looking for the other. Thee about 25% cheaper than Europcar. There is an office in Porto Torres for one of them. All great stuff. But then I did a search to find their site, and happened upon reviews from TripAdv and they were uniformly negative. People recommended going with the more established big names in car rental. One of the main complaints was that people paid for the extra insurance, and then there would be some small scratch on the car, and they would get charged 60-120 eu. They would complain that they had full coverage, but where told it was an administrative fee, not a repair charge. It sounded kind of shady. So I think I will go back to a bigger name and pay a little more, and get out of Porto Torres.

You folks who have travelled to or from the Porto Torres ferry terminal, is there public transportation? I looked at the map and it seems to be a mile to the train station. But in looking at google maps photos, it looks like a highway with no sidewalks - not a place to be walking.

Just wondering which ferry line are you taking. It seems that there are two, and they have different mooring points. When we went in the morning we saw a ferry on the eastside, but it wasn't the Grimaldi, that was on the west side, a bit farther away.

My sense is that the port is very busy when the ferry is there, and then you don't have to worry about traffic, and it would be okay to walk.

There does seem to be a public bus, this is the urban bus schedules from the town hall.