From Rome to Vinci

Vinci is in the hills about 40 miles west of Florence. It's not easy to get to from Rome. If you're really serious about this,

One way to do it is:

From Rome, take the train to Florence. Get a taxi from the Florence train station to the Florence airport, pick up a rental car at the airport (there's a reason I'm suggesting not picking up the car at the Florence train station or at a location that is within the historic center covered by the Florence ZTL system--doing so gets too complicated).

Drive to Vinci. You're going to want a GPS, it would be easy to get lost without one. Allow an hour and a half each way, if you have a GPS; if you don't, it's anybody's guess.

To see the driving route, go here and input the route

There's a specific reason why I'm strongly recommending that you not pick up the rental car from the Florence train station (it's a long and tedious story, but trust me on this one).

You probably don't want to attempt this in one day, not getting back to Rome. Since you will have a car, I suggest you avoid sleeping in a hotel in the historic center of Florence--so I'm not sure what to recommend as a location in which to sleep.

Someone else has suggested to Amy (not on this thread) taking the train from Rome to Empoli, and taxi from there to Vinci. This is likely to result in about 24 taxi miles (6 miles x 4).

I can see advantages and disadvantages to that plan, compared to the plan described in the first reply. Advantages includes avoiding her having to rent a car in Florence, hassle with driving in Florence, and having to find Vinci by herself. Pretty good advantages.

Possible disadvantage is getting a taxi to come back and get her (Vinci is small) and/or paying the taxi cost for 24 miles, I don't know how much that would cost in rural Italy.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?