Car Rental/Florence/Venice

1. This map shows the problem driving a car into Florence: http://www.bella-toscana.com/traffic/firenze_ztl_map.jpg Drive into any of the 5 zones in color and a camera photos your license plate and a few months later you get a little reminder of your Italy trip in the mail, a $150 fine for every time your car went past one of the cameras. The problem is that these zones, called ZTL's, comprise basically the entire historic core area of Florence. There are rumors that there actually is day parking outside the ring road and that you can get from the day parking into the historic core, but I don't recall anyone here giving us the secret on how to do it. (Anybody out there know?)2. Some good news: Actually, there's a train station in Poggibonsi, 20 mins/9 miles west of Castellina. The train ride to Florence is about an hour. 3. Your husband is definitely not alone in being reluctant to drive in Italy, I'm reluctant too, but I would do it if I'm staying where you're staying, you don't have a choice. And a rental car is the best way to explore the Tuscan hill towns. Many of us go out of our way to avoid driving in cities/towns like Florence and Venice (well, you can't drive very far into Venice). I don't know where the downtown Venice drop off location is, but car rental websites show you a map of the drop off location; or if they don't, if you have the street address of the drop off location, you can use Google Map or Viamichelin.com to locate it. 4. Another option is, on the day you're going to Venice, drop off the car in Siena and take the train from Siena to Venice. There is really no advantage in driving to Venice, if you just want to get to Venice as quickly as possible. [Edit: Doug makes the point, below, that taking the train might be more expensive than keeping the car for the last day.]

Driving to and dropping of in Venice is very easy. You can take the Autostrade the whole way and then once you cross the causeway into Venice follow the signs to the Piazzale Roma. That's where a parking garage and the car rental offices are. It's basically a dead end, so you're not dealing with urban traffic. From there, you can take the water buses anywhere you want to go in Venice.

Dropping your car somewhere short of Venice, as Kent suggests is a good option, but I think that as long as you already have the car you might as well use it to get to Venice - one of the only major tourist destinations where driving in is easy.

Thank you both so much. Kent, Poggibonsi looks perfect. There seems to be plenty of trains, so if we miss one, another will come along shortly.

Doug, thank you also, I am leaning toward keeping the car and driving to Venice, with an estimated drive time of 3 1/2 to 4 hrs on various map websites versus a 4 1/2 - 5 hr train ride, even if the time ends up the same, at least with a car we can stop for lunch to break up the trip for the kids.

Thanks again -- everyone on this helpline has been terrific