Car Rental - Tuscany

If you happen to be in Florence, the easiest way to see Siena is by taking a day trip on public transportation--a bus. It drops you off in the city center. We found Siena very congested with automobiles and parking difficult to find.

Most people stay outside San Gimignano in the countryside in a B&B or agriturismo. It's virtually impossible to do so without transportation as the nearest train station are in Certaldo or Poggibonsi.
Civita is a tiny place southwest of Orvieto, and most people would stay in or outside of Orvieto. It's also a popular place to drop rental cars (Hertz) and take a 70 minute train ride into Rome Termini--quick and easy.
I have no idea how much GPS's are, as I never use'em. But they're universally available.

CDW in Italy is required by government regulations, but prices are more reasonable than in the U.S. Any other insurance they attempt to throw on the rental are not worth the cost as most renters' homeowners' insurance in their home country covers such things.

On our last trip to Tuscany, we picked the rental car (thru AutoEurope.com) at Hertz on Sansovino, 2 miles from the Florence train station. The rental agent gave us directions out of town avoiding the ZTL's. We drove the 45 minutes or so to our agriturismo outside of Certaldo/San Gimignano. Our days were spent going from hilltown to hilltown, including Volterra--highly recommended. We later drove down to Orvieto and spent the night--turning the rental car in across the street from the train station. Then we went on into Rome on a local train. The trip was very smooth and efficient.

David has given you very sound advice. The only thing I'll add is regarding a GPS and insurance. If you have a smart phone, you can use a mapping program so you'll not need one. Google or Apple maps work fine and other apps are available. AutoEurope sometimes had a deal that included a free GPS unit. Call their toll free line and speak to one of their service rep to learn more. They mail you one in the US and you return it once you're home. For an extra $30, take the insurance. A stone hitting your windshield or destroying a tire costs a lot more. Remember too that most credit card companies don't provide insurance coverage on autos in Italy.

We had actually signed up for a car with the Hertz Neverlost GPS. One feature I liked was the ability to preprogram. When I went to the website and tried, I couldn't get to Italy. I called and they told me that feature was only available in the US.

I had an old Garmin and decided to use the trip as an excuse to upgrade. I was able to buy a new Garmin for not a lot more than the week's rental would have been for a GPS. I also ordered the SD card with maps of Italy and Greece (they come together).

Before we left, I was able to save all the locations we planned to visit, including our agriturismo, in the Garmin. I plugged it in at the rental facility at Rome FCO, scrolled to the saved address of our agriturismo, changed to KPH and the Garmin took us right to Greve. I like that it also displays speed limits.

The maps proved to be accurate and it was a good investment. I travel frequently for work and it really helps in unfamiliar cities.

I want to chime in on the parking for Siena. Check with your accommodation regarding parking availability or book someplace that offers this if your not booked yet. I can't say how parking is for day trippers but if a hotel has private parking its worth looking into before deciding to pass Siena by for parking.

I know that a couple of places have parking for their guests (Hotel Athena was mentioned for this) I have private parking reserved by my accommodation in Siena near the Cathedral. Hotel Athena is not in a ZTL area according to its FAQ page, it also directs the driver to its private carpark stating "Drive along the road until the round about, then follow directions for "Porta San Marco" - "Duomo". Then drive through the Arc (Porta San Marco) and left. After 800 m park the car in our private carparking. >>>

FAQ addresses parking and ztl here http://www.hotelathena.com/en/faq.html

One other hotel has been mentioned for parking but its name escapes me. If you want the name of my accommodation happy to pm it to you.

Call AutoEurope for the GPS. However if you have a navigator at home or a smart phone, you can use your navigator or your smart phone map application (apple, google maps or whatever). You need to be aware of international data roaming charges too (and that is another topic discussed in many other posts before). If you rent the GPS from Europcar, it's I think 15€ a day. which is more than any amount you could possibly pay using a smart phone.

I like to pay for full zero deductible insurance. €5 a day is about right and it's good for your piece of mind, because the deductible can be easily over €1000.

You should pick up the rental car to visit San Gimignano too. So if your base is near Siena, pick up a car for the entire period. There is no reason to split hotel stays between San Gimignano and Siena, the two are just minutes apart. Just pick one location for Tuscany that is convenient to all the places you visit, and have a car the entire time. A car to visit San Gimignano is good to have.

Don't worry about fuel cost. The distances you will be traveling are not a lot. In a week you won't drive more than 700 km. An economy or compact car, if diesel especially, will easily get at least 18 km per liter. If you drive under 700km, it will be under 40 liters. Your entire fuel bill won't reach €55 for the entire week. Even if you drive 1000km, which is very unlikely, you won't spend more than 75€ in fuel.
A liter of diesel fuel is under €1.40 while regular unleaded gasoline is just above €1.50/lt.
You'll spend more just for a dinner for two.

Thank you all for the brilliant advice. I was thinking we would drive all the way to Rome (train station maybe) to drop off the car but leaving it in Orvieto would probably be much simpler. We will definitely have our phones so they will be great back up for GPS. I've also ordered maps of Tuscany and Orvieto just for planning purposes but also back-up plan in case we have issues with phones or GPS. Definitely a good idea to get the extra insurance just for peace of mind.

So far I've booked 2 nights in San Gimignano's city center. We'll have to figure out if we should get a car first. It looks like we could take the train to Poggibonsi then a 30 min bus ride to San Gimignano. It just seems like we could go without a car for our first night at least and save on parking and rental costs, although Rick mentions a $6/day lot if we need it.

Thanks again!