Driving question. Best place to rent a car. Staying in Bergamo and want to drive in Tuscany.

It would be easiest to rent the car in Bergamo. Your other ideas have more steps involved.

Take the train to Tuscany and rent the car there. Saves you a bit of travel time and spares you a boring drive.

Note that not every small town in Italy has a car rental offices.

You would most likely pickup the car in Florence at a city location or at their airport if you were wanting to tour the Tuscan hilltowns. Montepulciano is pretty far south and best reached by rental car.

For Bergamo, your best bet would be renting the car in Milan, however Bergamo is probably large enough for rental car offices. You of course could drive down to Florence and Tuscany from there.

The roads in Tuscany are well paved if a little crooked when 2 lanes. They have toll roads comparable to our interstate highways too. Driving there is no problem as the directions are well marked.

Thanks so much everyone! I think I will rent a car in Bergamo and drive. It will be an experience!
JIM

as you are new to the Forums I'll just repeat the usual cautions - you need an IDP, you need to be familiar with and how to avoid or deal with ZTL and TUTOR - failure to do so usually results in very expensive fines eventually arriving in your mailbox and on your credit card. Spend the time to understand. Become familiar with the pictographs you will see on signs, and the various national speed limits.

Most enforcement is done by camera, often hidden, not patrol cars.