There are four of us spending four days each in Rome, Florence and Sorrento. We can’t decide whether to rent a car before we leave Rome, or train it to Florence and rent when we leave Florence or a couple days before leaving Florence to head to Sorrento. Since we will already be in Rome when we rent, is it better to rent at a place other than the airport, maybe the train stations, or somewhere else, for ease getting in and out of Rome? We will stay the night in Fiumicino near the airport to fly home.
Posted by
Gettysburg PA
8048 posts
You won't need or want a car in any of those locations. Parking, driving in/out etc are extremely difficult- chances of getting tickets very high!
Why not just take the train- pretty simple, fast and not expensive.
Trenitalia
https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html
Roma Termini to Firenze SM Novella
Firenze SM Novella to Napoli Centrale- then local train or driver to Sorrento. (Circumvesuviana-Lots of discussion on this forum)
Back to Napoli Centrale and fast train to Roma Termini. From there take the Leonardo Express to FCO or stay the night in Rome.
While in Florence you might consider renting for a day to visit Tuscan countryside, but you do not want to be driving in and out of Florence- you can't really due to ZTLs.
We always use AutoEurope.com.
You can pick up near train station or airport but near train station is perfectly fine.
Lots of discussion in how to do that here on the forum.
All drivers must have an IDP. If you are wine tasting you will need a designated driver.
Important info here:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/car-rental-return-at-firenze-santa-maria-novella-station
Posted by
5878 posts
Ditto--it is not clear when you would need a car for this plan -- perhaps share the day trips you are interested in so we can better advise.
Posted by
Uppsala, Sweden
7550 posts
I also can't see a point in having a car for this. Florence to Naples is 3 hours by train or a 5-6 hour drive. And from Naples there are several options to get to Sorrento, but driving is not a way I'd recommend.
Posted by
2 posts
I've driven those routes in the past.
Unless there is reason to rent a car at destination for travel to small towns, take the trains.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Klee456, was driving those routes difficult?
We have been to those three cities before but are taking family members who have not been to Italy at all. We’ve used the trains in the past but we’d like to see more than the trains this time.
We wouldn’t get the rental until we left Rome. We don’t plan on driving in Florence except maybe to small towns around. We’d have to use a parking garage there. In Sorrento we have free parking. maybe it would make more sense to train to Florence then rent the car to drive to Sorrento. There’s a few places I have picked out along the way I want to see. At that point tho it’s more expensive I think to train it to Florence then rent because at that point we have 4 train tickets plus less than a week rental and charge for turn it at a different place…
Posted by
5878 posts
None of those routes are difficult--you always have the option of highways versus slower, winding routes. But we still do not know where you want to go, and there are some complicating factors like parking, ZTL, needing to worry about stuff in your trunk, all that makes a precise plan needed.
I would not want the car in the Sorrento area, because there is train to Pompeii and ferry to the Amalfi Coast if those were on the agenda, and the AC has a road restriction in place where you cannot drive on certain days.
For Tuscany, the car could be useful, but knowing where you plan to go would help us advise.