Venice and Rome Hotels - Traveling by Car

Don't like Venice too much, so don't go there anymore; however, I've abandoned cars all over the place and never had any problems.

For Rome, you might consider the Eurostars Roma Congress. It's just inside the beltway, has gated parking, and, best of all, has a shuttle back and forth to Termini Station with the metro line. Shuttle runs in once in the am and back late pm and then again late at night. Makes it really easy,

Check out a wonderful B&B outside Rome in the historic village of Palestrina called Anne's Place (http://www.byanne.com). It's about 20-30 min. outside Rome via train, and David or Anne will take you to the train station and pick you up daily. They have plenty of parking for your car. This is a great value with unsurpassed hospitality. I think it fits your needs perfectly.

We left our rental car in Venice at the Tronchetto parking garage. It's in Venice and is easy to get to from the causeway as you arrive. Driving from the Autostrada past Mestre and across the lagoon into Venice is very easy.

The Tronchetto is much more expensive than the parking lots in Mestre - 21 Euros a day currently. There is another parking garage in the Piazzale Roma for 30 Euros a day. We took the usual precautions when we left our car there by leaving nothing valuable visible. However, I've not seen complaints of break-ins.

Once your car is parked, you walk to the far side from the garage entrance (hint - park your car as close to that side as you can) and take the elevator down to the walkway to the vaporetto stop that will take you into Venice. No need for private water taxis.

Jill

We drove as well all through Italy a few years ago and left our car at a car park across from the train station for 3 days at only 6.00E a day and had no problems. It is a well used lot but very convenient.

I assume that wherever you'll be prior to Venice, you'll need a car? And that you'll need a car after Rome?

While I'm generally in favor of rental cars, I recognize situations where having them doesn't make as much sense. As you'll be going from Venice to Rome, both locations where you don't need cars (in fact, they're a bit of a hindrance), here's an alternative. Price out whether it would make more sense to drop off your rental car in Venice, stay in the middle of Venice (much better than Mestre), then take the train to Rome, stay in a central location there as well (much easier to enjoy the sights, especially as you have such a limited amount of time), and if you need a car after that, pick up another rental car as you leave Rome.

When you're pricing the rental car side of the analysis, remember to include the parking fees and autostrada tolls as well as the cost of the gas.

Don't suppose you could spend more time in Rome or Venice? Two days in each place is actually less than that amount of time, when you factor in travel time.

Like Lexma i'd suggest a bit more time in Venice and Rome.

If you can, placing Venice and Rome at the end and beginning of your trip can make getting the car where you need it easier.

You might think about flying into Venice, renting the car as you leave to explore Tuscany for example and then dropping the car before training into Rome.