# Need planning help between venice & Rome



## wegottago (Apr 15, 2013)

Been on my own years ago and now traveling around Italy with DH and 15 and 12 year old.  We fly into and stay 2 nights in Venice.  Then we want to rent a car upon leaving Venice midday on a Wed. and travel around seeing the small towns of Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano, and maybe Florence Thursday, Friday and then arrive in Rome sometime Sat. I'm thinking 1 or 2 towns for our overnights before heading to Rome.  I need help planning this part of the trip please.  How would you do it??

1. Who is best to rent car from in venice?
2. Where is best town(s) to stay to do day trips from?  Would Montacatini be good?
3. Any reasonably priced hotel, apts, castle recommendations to stay at?
4. What other small towns are nice to drive / stop at? Not doing Verona, Bologna

5. **Most importantly I have no idea how or where I would return the car and get into Rome?  by train?  return car and train from Florence?

6. Any suggestions for nice, clean, reasonably priced hotel in Rome somewhat near the Termini Station because we then head to Naples for Pompei and south.

Thank you for any and all suggestions.  Got lots of great ideas from other threads for our trip!


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## Laurie (Apr 16, 2013)

Check autoeurope.com for car rentals, we always use them in Italy inc. in and out of Venice.

We generally use airports for car returns because they're easiest to drive to,  and there's usually good public transportation into center city. 

That's the case with Florence, so if you keep Florence on your itinerary, I'd recommend dropping your car at Florence airport, and taking the shuttle bus into town, it drops you next to the train station. If you stay in Florence, you can take the train to Rome. We've driven in Florence the first time (never again), and did the above the second time (much better idea).

You *can* see all those towns in that short amount of time, and I only say that because we've done it. But that's an ambitious itinerary for only 3 nights, and these days I wouldn't plan it that way, instead I'd choose 1 place as a base, and see how the time works out, starting at the most important places to me, and feeling OK if we didn't get everywhere we'd hoped. 

Rick Steves recommends Siena as a base  in Tuscany, taking day trips from there, including into Florence, which sounds like a fine idea to me. 

In Florence, if you care to get admission into the Uffizi and/or see the David, buy your tickets the minute you've nailed down your itinerary. 

Same thing in Pisa, I think we had to wait around for a couple of hours to get up into the tower, which was our only reason for being there, and it put us back on the road later than we'd thought. Still it was a thrill for me, since I'd seen pictures of this place since I was a small child. (Other folks don't think Pisa is that worthwhile...)

I'm sure others will chime in with more ideas.


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## Carolinian (Apr 16, 2013)

Most of your destinations can easily be reached by train.  The fast expresses are a good way to travel in Italy and you don't have the parking hassle.  If you don't drive back to Venice, the one way car rental will be pricy.  Cities in Italy are not good for driving.  You could at least take the train from Venice to Florence and rent the car from there,.  Siena and Pisa have lots of train service, although not the fast expresses on the Venice-Florience-Rome line.

Lately, I have found the best car rental deals at www.economycarrentals.com


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## Laurie (Apr 16, 2013)

Carolinian said:


> If you don't drive back to Venice, the one way car rental will be pricy.[/url]


There's no extra charge for dropping off at a different location than pickup within the same country, when using autoeurope.com - or hasn't been for the last 15 years, when I've checked. We frequently do that.


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## classiclincoln (Apr 16, 2013)

I second taking the train in Italy.  We did that a few years ago; flew to Venice, train to Florence, then train to Rome.  Very comfortable and easy.

When in Pisa (don't do what the Pisanos do), there is a gelateria on the side street that had popcorn flavored gelato.  Awesome!  Tasted like I was eating popcorn out of the bag, only without the butter on my clothes!  If you're walking down the street (with the tower on your left hand side), it's the first side street on your right, and the gelateria is on your left.


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## Conan (Apr 16, 2013)

Here's what we did when we toured Italy (family of five, but our children were older):

We flew from New York to Venice and stayed a few nights in Venice.  Our hotel was within comfortable walking distance of the train station and not terribly far from San Marco/St. Marks.

After Venice, we took the short train trip to Padua, having booked tickets to the Scrovegni Chapel (timed entry gives you a 15 minute pre-show and 15 minutes with a small group to see Giotto's frescoes)







http://www.divento.com/EN/2763/Italy+Padua+Permanent_Attraction+GIOTTO_S_ARENA_FRESCOES_SCROVEGNI_CHAPEL+tickets

[I suggest you substitute Padua for Pisa which is not so easily reached by train]

After one night in Padua, we continued by train to Florence where we stayed a few days.

Leaving Florence, we had arranged to be taken by a private van with driver who spent the day taking us one-way to Rome, with stops along the way (about an hour per town) in Siena, San Gimignano, and Montalcino.  Having a driver made parking a non-issue and we certainly couldn't have done it that way otherwise.

To finish the story, after some nights in Rome we flew to Catania, Sicily where we rented a car.  Using Naxos as our base (Naxos is the harbor town below Taormina), we self-toured the eastern half of Sicily including Taormina, Syracuse and Tindari.

It was an open-jaw ticket, so we flew home directly from Sicily.


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## beejaybeeohio (Apr 16, 2013)

*Suggestion*

Take train from Venice to Florence, rent car there for visiting the towns you mentioned, return rental car and train to Rome.  Maybe stay in San Gimigagno and from there do day trips to Siena & Pisa. The drive from Venice to Florence is on a toll road and takes much longer than the train. IMHO it's best to do a spoke-hub itinerary if possible so that there's not that much packing/unpacking.  Plus it seems you're trying to cram a lot into 5 days, when it might be better to take the time to really explore a city/area. Talk it over with your kids to see what interests them- a bike ride on the walls of Lucca, etc. might break up the museum/church monotony.

Consider renting an apt. for any stay 3+ nights.

This is our itinerary for Tuscany this fall- flying into FLR, renting a car for 5 nights and heading immediately to Lucca staying at Albergo villa Marta 2 nites.  When we depart Lucca we will stop at Pisa to climb the tower and then continue onto San Gimi where we are at Capanna di Sovestro for 3 nights and will do a day trip into Siena.  We then return rental car, spend three nights in Florence at a rental thru vrbo- it has a washer!!  We will then take Trenitalia to Venice where we board a cruise.

I had wanted to include the Cinque Terre, but realized it would be a "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt" visit, not an in-depth exploration.


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## elaine (Apr 18, 2013)

If you decide against a car, I can recommend a very good day tour from Florence. We took it b/c we wanted 1 day of me not having to do logistics everywhere, we wanted an authentic lunch at a farmhouse (it was excellent--included 4 types of unlimited wine) and it is difficult to reach these places by public transport. The tour goes 1st to Sienna with walking tour, cathedral visit and then an hour or so of free time, then to lunch at farmhouse/winery, then to San Girmagno (sp?) and lastly to Pisa. You can add tower climb at Pisa, if you want. Tour leaves from train station around 8am and returns 8pm. I booked on viator.com. It's called Tuscany Day trip. We had kids from 9-13 and my mom with us--everyone thought it was one of the best days of our 3 weeks in Europe.
Also, if you rent a car, many insurance policies and credit card supplemental policies exclude Italy--so check 1st. have fun! Elaine


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## ronandjoan (Jul 13, 2013)

elaine said:


> If you decide against a car, I can recommend a very good day tour from Florence. We took it b/c we wanted 1 day of me not having to do logistics everywhere, we wanted an authentic lunch at a farmhouse (it was excellent--included 4 types of unlimited wine) and it is difficult to reach these places by public transport. The tour goes 1st to Sienna with walking tour, cathedral visit and then an hour or so of free time, then to lunch at farmhouse/winery, then to San Girmagno (sp?) and lastly to Pisa. You can add tower climb at Pisa, if you want. Tour leaves from train station around 8am and returns 8pm. I booked on viator.com. It's called Tuscany Day trip. We had kids from 9-13 and my mom with us--everyone thought it was one of the best days of our 3 weeks in Europe.
> Also, if you rent a car, many insurance policies and credit card supplemental policies exclude Italy--so check 1st. have fun! Elaine



Thanks Elaine, we are going next May and need ideas - yours are good


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## Jimster (Jul 13, 2013)

*Train*

You cant drive a car in the inner city of Florence or Venice either.  Ive used the train with no problem-including Florence to Pisa.  Its much easier to look out your train window than your windshield-especially when you are driving your stick shift manual transmission.  You can get anywhere you want in Europe by train, taxi and bus and probably much more cheaply and safely  than by car.  Part of the mystic of going to Europe and other countries is to experience their culture like they do rather than renting car, eating at KFC and Pizza Hut and staying at Holiday Inn.  The train rides will be part of the experience.  When you get home it wont be very exciting to say to your friends-"Wow we actually experienced three days of a car ride.  How exciting we rode in an actual car." OTOH it might be impressive to say 'We experienced our first  extensive train ride.   This is especially true if it really is your first train ride."  We dont have complete globalization yet-experience their culture.

As for places to go i would recommend Lucca, a beautiful walled Medevial town.   I would also not miss Florence.


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