We have a few questions about an upcoming trip to Rome and Austria for 25 days. Plan is to fly overnight from Boston to Rome, pickup a car at the airport (already reserved thru Rail Europe with rail pass) then drive to a B&B outside Tarvarnelle - Sovigliano. We plan to stay there and loop thru the area seeing Florence and Siena as well as some of the smaller hill towns. Then we will drive back to FCO, drop off the car and train overnight to Vienna. Does 5 days in Sovigliano as a base camp seem reasonable or should we stop at various places along the way to sleep? What problems might we incur with car rental at the airport? Should we both have international drivers' licenses? WE are seasoned travelers but have always avoided driving in Italy. Long winded but thanks.
Posted by
winston salem, nc, usa
1078 posts
Only question I have is why not drop the car at the Florence train station instead of driving all the way back to FCO? If you do go back to FCO, make sure you "home" the rental car location on a GPS as it is pretty confusing and not well signed to get back to the rental car garages-you best look for the Hilton sign and go from there. Another thought; make sure the headlights are not set for city driving as you will hardly be able to see at night when in the countryside.
Finally, I'm cheap so I only show one driver and not add a second as you will be charged. How you manage the driving is then up to you.
Posted by
OP
North Granby, CT
32 posts
I'm mistaken. The reason for going back to Rome is that we are staying there for several days before taking the night train to Vienna. We wanted to see the Tuscan counrty side and making a loop that would include Siena and Florence from a home base seemed logical. If we stayed in Rome first, we would have to travel a longer distance to see Florence and Siena, involving packing and unpacking. Then return to Rome for the train. We are taking two overnight trips to and from Rome and Vienna. We have done this before from Rome to Paris and loved the idea of dining and sleeping in the train. Very magical. There aren't many trains, however, that have sleeper cars.
Thanks for your tip about the driving. I was mainly interested if I needed an international drivers license in case I do want to drive. I probably won't but as a precaution, I wondered if my US license would suffice as long as my husband carried an international license.
Posted by
Tel Aviv
15585 posts
My info is that in Italy anyone who drives the rental car must have an international driving permit.
Posted by
Carbondale, IL, USA
1201 posts
Every one who drives is required to have an international driving permit along with your US driver's license. The IDP is basically a translation of your US license. In the US, the IDP can be obtained at AAA offices. you might want to consider taking either a train or bus for your visit to florence from wherever you are staying. There are several restricted traffic zones in the city center guarded by automated traffic cameras. violations can mean stiff fines.
Posted by
Celina, Ohio, USA
74 posts
One problem that might occur when picking your car up at FCO is a long wait. I'm not sure what agency you're renting from or what daay of the week you'll get it, but we arrived at the airport to pick up a car on a Saturday in June and had about a 3 hour wait. Later arrivees waited even longer. We rented through Hertz but all agencies were experiencing similar delays. Not sure what the problem was except they all seemd to have more cars going out than coming in. A week later, also on a Saturday, when we dropped our car off, all agencies were again very crowded with long waits. You might want to figure that wait into your itinerary if you think it might apply.
Posted by
OP
North Granby, CT
32 posts
That might have been when the tube station caught fire - at least that's what I hope was the delay. We've reserved through Eurorail and Hertz is the provider. We've coming in at 7:45 am.