My wife and I will be renting an apartment in Cortona for 7 days in June. After staying in Rome for 4 days, we will take the train to Tuscany. My questions are as follows:
We want to avoid, obviously, picking up and dropping off in Florence. What and where do you suggest? Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
I don't think there's an office for a major rental company in Cortona. The standard recommendations for picking up a rental car from the train line north from Rome are Orvieto and Chiusi. You can check out rates on Autoeurope.
Pickup and drop off will be at the same place. After a week in Cortona we will be taking the train back to Rome to fly home.
Thanks for your thoughts! Chiusis or Orvietto. I am leaning toward Chiusi. Sounds like it does not make a difference though.
Chiusi is closer, although not by a significant distance. I would check the office hours for the rental agency. Autoeurope tells you if the offices are open at the times you want to pick up and drop off. I would imagine both locations are closed on Sundays and in the early afternoon.
Check with Sixt. Looks like they have a rental place in Cortona.
We have been to Cortona numerous times. We usually pick up our car at the Rome airport. It is very easy to get to Cortona from Rome. It may be more expensive, but it's easy to get to the A1 from the airport.
If you want any suggestions about Cortona and that area, let me know.
And, Florence is best done as a train ride from Cortona.
Lane, Thank yu so much for the information in regards to the car rental place in Cortona!
I do NOT want to drive from the Rome Airport to Cortona! My wife and I are much more comfortable, after staying in Rome for 4 days, catching the train from the Terminni station to Cortona.
Thank you for all your suggestions!
You are welcome Steven. We took the train from the Camuchia-Cortona train station to Rome and returned 3 days later. Not a long train ride at all.
There are two train stops that serve Cortona, in Camucia and Terontola. The car rental place mentioned by another poster appears in to be in Camucia and close to the train station. It is very easy to get to Cortona from Camucia. You may already know this, but it is not easy to drive in Cortona because the streets are so narrow. Your best bet is to park in one of the parking lots that are outside the city walls and walk in.
The lady with whom my wife and I are renting an apartment in Cortona had some information regarding renting a car near Cortona.
An earlier post mentioned Sixt, a rental company from the UK. She said that they are located in Camucia (5 km from Cortona). It is, however, not an easy walk from the train station. She suggested that we get off at Terontola (10 km from Cortona). Right across the street from the train station is the rental car company, Il Girasole. Their website is: www.autonoleggioilgirasole.it
This is the suggestion of someone who lives in Cortona. If anyone has any experience with Il Girasole, then please let me know.
Again, thanks for all the kind help!
Steven, I looked at that website earlier but it appeared their rentals did not have unlimited mileage. Every place I have rented from always had unlimited mileage. Check out both. Sixth may be the same. I would check with both and see which is cheaper.
In Cortona, near the train station is Il Girasole car rental, www.autonoleggioilgirasole.it.
Again, thanks for all of your help. I compared the two rental car companies, Sixt and Il Girasole.
With Sixt you get unlimited km usage
Il Girasole is about $90 cheaper that Sixt for the week..
With Il Girasole you get 1050 km for the week. The cost for going over is about 20 cents per km. The foks at Il Girasole stated that drivers renting cars for the week rarely go over the the alloted kms.
If you know the places you plan on visiting during your stay in Cortona you could go to viamichelin.com and calculate the approximate miles to the different townns and back. Always allow for extra miles. You may get lost or decide on going to a further destination than originally planned. The 1050 km would be around 650 miles. You would have to go an additional 450 km or around 280 miles for the Sixt deal to be equal the other. You could always contact Sixt and see if they would match the base offer of Il Girasole.
After much searching I decided to rent from AutoEurope. They have an office in Chiusi which is about 40 km from Cortona. We will take the train from Rome right to Chiusi. The car rental office is .2 km from the station. It will be very easy to drive to our apartment in Cortona.
When I compared the rates of AutoEurope to the two car rental places near Cortona, there was a decided difference in price. Also, they will ship the GPS device to me before I leave the states which will give me a chance to figure out how to use the thing. Also, we will then have it with us to use in Rome as well.
AutoEurope (Chiusi): $380.00 - unlimited miles and GPS
Il Girasole (Terontola): $460.00 - 150 km per day and GPS
Sixt (Camucia): $520.00 - unlimited miles and GPS
Many thanks to you folks, especially Lane who was a great help!
You are sooo right Kent! I always knew that I could go with AutoEurope in Chuisi. However, I wanted to see what was closer, and, perhaps, cheaper. Turns out that closer was not cheaper.
Lesson learned: If thou doest thine homework, thou shalt be rewarded! lol
We have rented two different apartments in Cortona in the past. When you get back I would love to hear from you about the apartment and if you would recommend it. It's always nice to know what other options are out there.
We will be taking the same route from Rome to Cortona in September. The plan was to take the train towards Cortona from Rome and rent a car somewhere close to Cortona. We will be landing in Rome on Saturday morning, taking the train from the airport to the main terminal and traveling to Cortona from there. In researching all the great info here, I can't find any rental offices that are open after 1:00 PM on Saturdays. There is no way we will be north of Rome before 1:00 PM. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
I dropped a car off in Camucia once while visiting Cortona. The agency was Sixt.
