Driving in Italy + train question

The schedule change took place Dec 8, so it is already completed. Schedules showing now on the Trenitalia and Italotreno websites for a date in May are the real thing. Yes, if you take business class, you can choose your seats when you buy the tickets. Just to be clear, you are not making reservations, you are purchasing tickets with all the restrictions that go with that, just like airline tickets.

They don't put ZTL's on airport access roads or autostradas, otherwise hardly anybody could use them. ZTL's are in the old centers of cities and towns where they don't want you drive and clog traffic and pollute the air.

Horsewoofie, for toll roads my only advice is to carry lots of small-denomination Euros -- in France, we found that our chipped credit cards worked only about half the time, and if the smallest cash you have is €50 you will get a LOT of €2 and €1 coins as change. Think Las Vegas slot paying off ....
We drove for a week in Tuscany May 2017 and found ZTL's all over -- they were well-signed, but we were never sure we had turned away in time. No tickets yet, so we're probably OK. Just keep a lookout for the signs -- and for the other tourists making U-turns to avoid entering the ZTL zones.

I see you comparing the fare to premier.

I'd compare it to standard.

Those high speed trains are so comfortable, with so much legroom, that I never pay to upgrade. Certainly never to board room class.

If you want to, great. But I'd check if I could have everything I wanted for less money. I'm cheap.

You can see what the trains look like on seat 61, and on youtube. seat 61 even has videos.

I prefer the .Italotreno trains, the ones with the plush leather seats in standard class.

There is a new timed ZTL at the Naples airport. It's to prevent drivers from circling around the arrivals area. The car rental area is NOT in this area.

This is what I found to be helpful. Google “ZTL” and click on “images”. Familiarize yourself with the pictures. We had some close calls. A couple of times we had to make a U-turn in the middle of the street. Once the street in front of us and the street turning right were both entering ZTL zones. But we managed to return home unscathed.

We’ve rented cars in Italy twice, both among Tuscany hill towns and successfully avoided any tickets.

Ahead of our trip, I studied the RS guide and parking hints, looked at google maps, and found the parking lots on our GPS and programmed the parking lot as the destination. If you program the hotel or city, you will be directed there. When and IF you see the ZTL sign (sometimes amongst 1/2 dozen other signs) you have no plan B and your GPS will continue to send you into the ZTL.

One other hint that has helped us avoid verbal spats. When the driver gets to a round about, and the navigator is trying to absorb signs, GPS, and the proper exit. Our rule is the driver should remain quiet, continue driving round the round about until the navigator figures things out and calmly stays, “that the next exit”. A few times we’ve circled the round about 4 times.

Some GPS say take the third exit, but that is not always clear. Sometimes the GPS will state the unrecognizable street name which is not signed anyway, hence the round about confusion. And then there are always the “new” roundabouts that your GPS doesn’t know about.

If there are not speed limit signs, 50ml inside city limits, (don’t speed up until you see the city name with a line through it, 90ml on non autostradas.

Thanks everyone for your help. Since this is an overnight trip so my SIL can visit her grandparents’ home town, I just need to keep reminding myself “I can do this, I will do this.”

Any opinions which phone map app is best to prep for the drive? Google Maps and Apple Maps give slightly different directions. Neither tells me where the toll booths are. I will get GPS with the rental car.

We’ve used google maps in addition to our Garmin. So you don’t use data, download an offline map of vicinity before leaving home on your phone.

Karen has some excellent advice about gps’s and roundabouts. We have found that sometimes the instructions are flat out wrong; e.g., it says take 2nd exit when it’s really the 3rd. Other times what looks like an exit isn’t. Just go around until you are sure of what you are doing.

For the passenger to have advanced warning of speed limits, roundabouts, toll booths and cost of tolls and other directional information, I still use and print via Michelin maps. What I've found driving in Italy is the road signage is a lot closer to turns and exits than it is here. Or seems so when in new areas.

As long as the navigator is comfortable doing so, and doesn't forget where they are on the directions.

Most times it will match the GPS directions, but Serves as an advance warning system.

https://www.viamichelin.com/web/Smart_road?departure=80100%20Aeroporto%20Napoli-Capodichino%2C%20Italy&departureId=31NDFrMDYxMGNOREF1T0RnMU9UZz1jTVRRdU1qZzNNelk9&arrival=Salerno&arrivalId=3aMTEyZHcxMGNOREF1TmpjNE1EST04TVRRdU56WTI=&index=0&vehicle=0&type=0&distance=km&currency=EUR&highway=false&toll=false&vignette=false&orc=false&crossing=true&caravan=false&shouldUseTraffic=false&withBreaks=false&break_frequency=7200&coffee_duration=1200&lunch_duration=3600&diner_duration=3600&night_duration=32400&car=hatchback&fuel=petrol&fuelCost=1.477&allowance=0&corridor=&departureDate=&arrivalDate=&fuelConsumption=

I second Gerri on using a printout of Michelin driving directions as a valuable backup to GPS and road maps. It is legal in France to have a printout that indicates the known (and often obscure) speed cameras, and even if you take a few side stops along your day of driving, the navigator can make a simple math calculation from known points to make an odometer correction for the traps. I also use Google Maps Street View to study the route to our hotels in Italy, checking for the ZTL signs and how to find parking outside the zone. One would think that a Marking on the pavement would save grief for tourists, but then it would cost the City to install, and they would be foregoing resulting revenue from fines.

That said, I'm still very apprehensive of our coming 26-days or touring with a car (short-term lease through IdeaMerge) in late-April through May in Italy / France. My navigation binder is getting thicker by the day, until I can start tearing out the pages as we travel. This will be our 9th tour incorporating driving for a major portion, and each time the rules get tighter and the threat of fines grows. No longer can you just drive safely and watch the road, going with the flow. It would be an advantage to be a lizard, keeping one eye on the road signs, and the other fixed on the speedometer.

Thanks again everyone for the idea. Gerri, printing off the driving instructions is brilliant. SIL is very low-tech and I like to see things before hand to get the "lay of the land". Off-line Google Maps and Map.me are already downloaded as are RS Audio Tours.