Tuscany Rental Car Advice Please

I am a little confused. Is the order of your trip Rome - Venice - Florence - Asciano - Rome? From your narrative, it seems so but the list does not reflect this. Will you go to Venice from Rome immediately upon your flight arriving from the US?

Anyway, you will only need a car when leaving Florence for the Asciano portion. What day do you depart Florence?

From Asciano, Orvieto is a logical place to return the car and take the train to Rome. Nice to stop in Orvieto for lunch and a look around as well.

I apologize for the confusion. When we arrive in Rome, we are immediately taking the train to Florence.

Florence > Venice > Asciano > Rome

Europecar at the Florence airport is open 7 days until 23:00. That might be your best option. The locations n on Via Borgognissanti is open until 4pm on Saturday.

You need to go to Venice first, pick up a car leaving Florence and drop it off on the way to Rome.

The train you plan to take to Florence is actually the Venice train--direct at 11:08AM and 3:08, others you change downtown. Purchase tickets on arrival. Florence is an intermediate stop; Venice in a little over two hours.

Read this about driving in Italy and restrictions involved [ZTLs]; avoid leaving anything of value in a car when parked:

http://driventoit.blogspot.com/

We arrange our rentals through Autoeurope [for which we have a toll free number]; get zero-deductible collision, which covers any damage to the body of the vehicle. One option leaving Florence is a cab to Via Palagio degli Spini , the complex near the airport and a Hertz rental. With the Ponte Amerigo Vespucci closed, it is much more complicated to drive out of Borgo Ognissnanti. They stopped using Hertz in Orvieto due to complaints, so return the car in Chiusi, a half block from the station. They are closed on Sunday. First train to Rome is at 10:54AM.

If you insist on going to Venice second, then you need to rent a car in Venice at Piazzale Roma and drive to Asicano, which will take around four hours. If you take the two-hour train ride to Florence, drive out of Via Palagio degli Spini about an hour later, it will take at least 1.5 hours to get to Asicano.

Since OP already has lodgings booked I don't think suggesting a change to itinerary is helpful at this point- yes going to Venice from Rome then to Florence would have made more sense-- but it is what it is.

I would suggest calling AutoEurope- 800-223-5555- they are based in US and are EXTREMELY helpful. Tell them your situation and they will be able to offer options, as they will know all the locations, hours, availability.

I'd say train to Florence from Venice then pick up car. If you arrive at 10- you will have plenty of time- the car rental locations are just a few minutes walk from station
The Hertz location at Borgo Ognissanti is open til 1 on Sat and Sun. You can drop the car in Chiusi then train to Rome.
Usually no need to go all the way to airport and pay higher rates- although in your case being on a Sat- you'll have to see what AutoEurope can offer.

Do a search on forum for car rental pick up in Florence- look for responses from Roberto- he always gives very specific instructions on how to leave that location and avoid ZTLs.

First thing I would do is call up the hotels and see if the dates can be changed. If not, the best option IME without question is driving out of Venice.

I have all lodging booked, plus some tours and museum/colosseum tickets purchased.<<

I am assuming train tix already purchased as well

At this point, I'm not going to rearrange the itinerary. We decided to insert 2 nights in Venice after making all other arrangements. (We had been deciding between CT and Venice for those 2 nights.). Plus we will have been traveling almost 20 hours from Seattle, so another 4-hour train trip was not ideal. The fast train from Rome to Florence seemed do-able on arrival.

Italo has a train from Venice to Florence that leaves Venice 08:00 and arrives Florence 10:09. That's the train we plan to take back and then get a car to go to the countryside.