Four of uswill be traveling from Sorrento to Siena in September. If we don't drive, it looks like the easiest way to go is by bus. Has anyone done this? How can I find a schedule? We are thinking of driving and keeping the car for the week we are in Tuscany. What kind of parking facilities are available in Siena and Florence. We do not want to drive too far into the cities. Thanks so much for your help.
Posted by
US Pacific Northwest
10344 posts
Your questions are good ones, and the subject of parking and driving in Florence has been discussed here once or twice a week for the last year. I'm going to give you a simplified summary but I suggest that you use the search box in the upper right corner of this webpage and search on the words "Florence" and "Florence parking" to learn everything you should know. Simplified Summary:1. Overnight parking in Florence is almost nonexistent, despite what you may read, especially if you want to pay less for your car's lodging per night (parking) than for your own.2. One of the few ways around this is to book only lodging that clearly states to you that they will provide secure overnight parking for your car and at a rate that seems reasonable to you, it won't be cheap. The kind of lodging that can provide parking will be located on the outskirts of Florence and ideally close to a highway that you will be driving in on. 3. The overnight parking situation in Siena is somewhat better than in Florence.4. There are restricted and prohibited zones in Florence and some other Tuscany towns into which you cannot drive unless your license plate is in the city of Florence computer; many people reporting in here have received $150 fines in the mail or had their credit cards charged for unknowingly driving into the zones, there are automatic cameras that take a photo of your license plate if your car passes the cameras and your license plate number is not in the computer you get the fine. So don't drive into the historical central section of Florence at all.5. There is some day parking in Florence. For the details, use the search function to find the last 50 discussions of this.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Having a car coming north out of Rome to go through Tuscany is just great. You can see Assisi and Cortina (Umbria) and then swing west to see Montpulciano, Siena, Montalcino, San Gimignano and Voterra.
BIG WARNING: In general, there is no parking in Florence. There will be travelers on this site that will tell you how easy they found parking at the train station or by the Pitti Palace but in general, you won't find a parking place. Worse yet are the Zona Traffico Limitatos (restricted zones). They are all over Florence. BIG EXPENSIVE TICKET for entering these zones. They have cameras that will snap pictures of your license plate and your rental car company will rat you out. Leave your car in Siena and take the SITA Rapide bus to and from Florence. Very frequent service execpt on Sunday when it's not so frequent.
I believe that there is limited bus service to Rome from Sorrento.
Posted by
Seattle, WA, USA ☔️
6788 posts
Well, I think the answer depends. You indicate you're trying to get between Siena and Sorrento. Seems to me that the train is the obvious choice and the easy, no-hassle way to go. Take the circum-vesuviano from Sorrento to Naples, then catch the most logical connection to Siena (don't recall off the top of my head -- maybe via Rome). In any case, it should be quite straightforward, and it will get you efficiently from point A to point B.
Now, if you want to wander and stop off along the way, then train travel obviously isn't optimized for that.
The idea of having to deal with a car in Siena, Florence or Sorrento sounds like hell to me. I'd think very long and hard about it before taking a car to any of them.