ZTL's in Tuscany

Biggest area is Florence. There are none in the country side. And very few if any in the smaller hill towns. They are will marked but learn to read the signs. In the country side I would be more worried about speed cameras than ZTLs.

Thanks Frank! Yes, it seems like the consensus from other RS forum's: Watch out for speeding. And learn to read signs. Most people said the ZTL's were pretty evident.

Thanks Frank! Yes, it seems like the consensus from other RS forum's: Watch out for speeding. And learn to read signs. Most people said the ZTL's were pretty evident.

The ZTL areas will be in the towns. Sometimes they're enforced by automated cameras (Florence) and sometimes by the "cop on the beat". I believe Siena has ZTL areas and I've also seen them in Assisi and other places. During the time I was in Assisi, one of the locals told me that the city authorities were thinking of installing cameras there too. Be sure you know what the signs look like - http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/driving/traffic_cameras_speeding.htm .

I'm pretty sure there was one in the main section of town in Castellina in Chianti.

According to the International Convention this road sign means NO MOTOR VEHICLES PERMITTED.

This sign is posed at the entrance of all ZTL areas.

There will be other specifications detailed below it, such as hours of operation, but the point is to keep an eye for the white and red circle pictured above.

This is how the ZTL entry point typically looks in any given town (in this case camera enforced)

https://goo.gl/images/LZg9rT

Watch for the speed limits. That is where the cameras get people more frequently.

I do think one does need to be careful about ZTLs. And I always do my best to comply with posted signs. That said, I have a confession to make...

In September, my spouse and I rented a car and went off to explore a region of Italy - not Tuscany (I won't share the location out of respect for the city). We had a full day of driving ahead, with a few different stops, along a beautiful route. The plan was to end the day in a good-sized city on the coast, and spend a few nights there.

We spent the day driving along, sightseeing, exploring, having a grand time. I got a parking ticket at our lunchtime stop. I went - on foot - to the city office to pay the ticket, which I did successfully (my wife said to just drive there - I was wary of ZTLs and figured one ticket that day was enough, so I decided to go as a pedestrian). That was fairly easy, ticket paid, we continued on. Destination was an old city, my ETA was just before dinner.

We arrived in the city at the projected time. I had reserved a B&B in the old city center for a few days. There's no Rick Steves book for this area, so I was improvising. On the B&B website, it looked like a good location - right in the old center, close to the harbor, restaurants, and all the good stuff. The place looked cool online, but you never know. I had the address programmed in my GPS.

We arrived in the old center late afternoon, just before sunset, as the shadows were getting long. I was following the instructions my GPS was bleating at me, cross-referencing the printed map showing the location of our B&B that I had brought from home. It had been a long day driving, and we were both getting tired. The streets started getting very narrow, and were increasingly crowded with pedestrians. Everything seemed to be closing in on us as I was hunting for the address. GPS voice said turn left, but that was a one-way street going the wrong way, so around the block we went. Soon we found ourselves in impossibly narrow streets, driving past the back doors of shops, restaurants, old houses. Is this really a street?, my wife asked. Yeah, there's a truck behind me right on my bumper, so it's a street (but not by much).

Round and round we went in these teeny streets for a good 20 minutes, following the GPS, looking for house numbers (there were none, of course), making wrong turns, going round and round. We had clearly been going in circles, and driven up and down some of these streets at least 3 or 4 times, probably more.

It was getting dark, but we pressed on. On about our 5th time through one of those narrow alley-streets, as I stopped to let some pedestrians cross in front of us, I looked up and saw it: a ZTL sign. With a camera on a pole. The camera was pointing at me. Then I saw a flash.

Oh....no...

Finally I came to my senses (a bit). I pulled over, found a place to park the car, and got out. We called our B&B host, he asked us to describe what we saw around us. I did. He started giving us step-by-step directions to the B&B. I locked the car and followed his instructions. We were getting close, but we had been (driven) down all these streets many times before. No worries, our host said, he would be out front and would see us as we walked by.

We started walking down the same streets we had just been driving through repeatedly for the past 30 minutes. That's when I noticed passing several more ZTL signs, each with a camera on a pole. All of which we had surely driven by multiple times. Oh lord. How many ZTL tickets had we piled up? I had visions of being locked up in an Italian debtors' prison.

As I walked by yet another ZTL sign & camera on a pole, talking on the phone to our B&B guide, I felt a hand grab me firmly by the shoulder. Oh no - was it the Carabinieri come to take me away?

(to be continued...)

"Buona sera, signore David?"

I wheeled around to confront my accuser. To my surprise, it was not an armed policeman. It was our B&B host.

Very relieved, we gathered our wits, and our bags, and checked in to the very nice renovated flat in the old town. We took care of all the formalities, talked about our plans for the next few days, and then I asked about my ZTL troubles. Our host suggested we go visit the municipal police tomorrow and try pay our fines then, rather than waiting for all the escalating fines to follow us home. I agreed.

The next day we headed off to the local police station, on foot. I was worried. I had been doing math all night. I didn't know how much a ZTL ticket was, but we probably went by those cameras dozens of times. Whatever the individual tickets cost, I figured we could multiply that by 25 or more. This could be very ugly - but I wanted to nip it in the bud, rather than wait for it all to follow me home with costs skyrocketing even more with late penalties and "processing fees" heaped on by the rental car company. Sigh.

I got to the police station around lunchtime and it seemed a pretty relaxed place. Most people there gave me an odd look and ignored me. One policeman eventually asked me what I wanted. After apologizing that I had only limited Italian language skills, and thanking him for speaking to me in English, I explained the situation. He looked worried, but sympathetic. He told me to wait and he would go confer with a colleague. He came back and told me the person who manages the ZTL systems was on lunch and we would have to wait. No problem, I'd wait.

After about 45 minutes, he came back and asked us to follow him. We went into a small room where there was a woman and several computers. He explained to her (in Italian) what I had told him, she started shaking her head, then she asked for the car plate number, which ZTL cameras we drove by and what time. I gave the details. When I said how many and how many times, both officers looked at each other, rolled their eyes and winced as if they were in pain. I believe the first cop actually said "mama mia" which seemed both charming and very worrisome. Gulp.

She started searching in her computer. Both officers were rapidly speaking to each other in Italian, waving their hands around, maybe arguing (or maybe just being being animated). He paced back and forth, she kept tapping on the keyboard and muttering "hmmmm" and "tsk tsk tsk" and looking worried. This went on for a while, then they called me over to look at the screen. There was a database program running that had hundreds of listings. They explained these were the records of license plates of all the cars caught by the ZTL cameras in the past 24 hours. There were a lot.

They asked me to confirm the license plate number, and the date I drove through all the ZTLs. I repeated what I told the first officer. They looked at each other and paused for what seemed like an eternity.

The first officer let out a long sigh and paused. He turned to me and said. "OK, now you go."

Hunh? What? How much did I owe? I told him I didn't understand. He smiled and said, "We find nothing. No record this car." He smiled again and then added: "You have a very lucky car - you should keep it!" He laughed and waved his hands indicating we should go.

The woman at the computer turned to me, and said in perfect, unaccented English: "Sometimes the cameras don't work. So you owe nothing." She shrugged and smiled. "Have a nice visit, enjoy the rest of your trip - and be more careful next time." I thanked her and said I'm sure we would.

We waved goodbye, left, and walked back to the old town, found a place for lunch by the seawall, and had some pasta and a bottle of wine.

So, sometimes the posted ZTLs with cameras don't really work.

Important note: I would NOT count on this, but it saved my bacon.

I love Italy.

Here's a website that has info regarding the location of ZTL's.

Thanks David for your story. Also thanks for accepting the responsibility of your actions. Too many come here and accuse ZTL’s as being a scam.

Driving tired and late is never a good plan. There were a couple of times in Scotland where I found myself on the wrong side of the road. They were all at dusk after a long day.

I applaud the OP for doing your homework. I didn’t drive in Rome and Florence. I did find the ZTLs well marked, though. ZTLs in Siena, Castellina, Radda, San Gimignano and Volterra are well marked. Assume any area within the walls of a hill town is ZTL. It is possible to stay trouble free from both ZTL and speed trouble. We came back from a wonderful trip ticket free.

I think the police were just giving you a break because you were so honorable and apologetic and nice about it --- the cameras were working just fine.

David!!!
Great story, you can make a Seinfeld episode from that experience.

Yes! You can google ZTLs per city. At least big cities. For example, we googled ZTL's for Florence (https://www.visitflorence.com/tourist-info/driving-in-florence-ztl-zone.html) The web site shows pictures of what you'll see (you will know right away where you shouldn't be) and there's also a map of where the ztl boundary is in Florence.

Here are some other websites you might find helpful:
https://www.walksofitaly.com/blog/travel-tips/drive-in-italy
https://www.lifeinitaly.com/travel/driving.asp
https://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/the-italian-autostrada-tips-for-foreigners
http://www.italia.it/en/useful-info/rules-to-drive-in-italy.html

And one of the best things you can do is map our your route in Google Maps to make sure you are not being taken through a ZTL zone. The ZTL zones are typically beyond the 'wall' and in the old part of a city.

Happy travels!

If your guidebook or your hotel host has suggested a parking lot outside the old town, then set your GPS for that location. At least you can stop there and regroup. People hoping to find a closer parking spot are among the most likely to get themselves into difficulty (like me in Montalcino). Be prepared with different options to pay for parking, such as coins.

Oh yeah. Among the (multiple) lessons I learned that day included:

Don't bother trying to drive right up to your accommodations deep in the old center that you so cleverly picked out from the other side of the world. No GPS, map, good sense of direction or other aid can get you right to Ground Zero in a car, even if you could find it (and you won't find it, until you are on foot -- driving in there requires 100% of your attention, leaving no mental bandwidth to look for building numbers). Just try and make your way to someplace near the edge of that zone (and watch for ZTL signs as soon as you start getting close), park the car, and head in for the last bit on foot. It's so much less stressful!

When we reached places in other old cities later in the trip, I applied the above lesson and everything went smoothly. No more visits to police stations for the rest of that trip.

David
Thanks for story! lol Wow, your honesty "paid it off!" Also I was chuckling about remote cleverly picked bnb. It's not remote but still have me thinking, I definitely don't want to get lost. Hoping to arrive at about 4 pm.

Thanks Philip, keikerman, and Laura for web addresses and tips!