Italy Car Rental?

Travel, Wine Tourism, and Restaurants Forum
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I stopped using my Garmin after Piedmont. Also been using iPhone apps the last couple of years.

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I note you live in NYC. The first time I went to Rome, I asked some friends if it was ok to drive in Rome. Two said yes, no problem. Two said you’d have to be crazy to even think of driving there. I finally figured out that first 2 had learned to drive in NYC and Boston, while the latter 2 had learned to drive in the Midwest. Having learned to drive in NJ, I had no problem driving in Rome, or anywhere else in Italy.

Driving on the main boulevard in Viareggio with my Italian friend navigating, he said, “Oh, you should have made that left back there. Sorry.” I looked in the mirror and made U-turn to go back. He leaned over and whispered, “Be careful, or the police will stop you, and give you an Italian drivers license.”

It was a moment of great pride.

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I’ve rented cars in Italy 12 times over the past 20 years and for the most part driving has not been difficult. A few bits of advice:

  • Stay as far away as you can from Milan in your car. The tangentiale (beltway) is congested most of the time and horrendous at rush hours and the signage is confusing. Driving in out of the center of the city is no pleasure, either.
    Luckily, you don’t have to get on the tangentiale if you’re flying into Malpensa and going to Lake Como or someplace west (e.g., Piedmont).

  • If you have the urge to get off the autostrada, beware that Italian secondary roads are generally not that great, and are often quite congested. In the mountains, they can be very slow, hard driving.
    If you have any significant distance to cover, the autostradas are the way to go. They are characterless, but they do have Autogrill rest stops, where you can actually get good food, as well as food products, toys and even wine!
    Have your credit car out for the tolls, which can add up.

  • Google maps worked very well for me for two weeks in September, both on the road and in towns. The GPS in our BMW, on the other hand, sucked big time. Really bad! (It also had a woman with a very proper, clipped British accent, who would contradict the chirpy American Google woman. It was hilarious.)

  • The Bologna airport is a good option, which I’ve used a number of times. It’s modern but not that large. It’s just 70 or 80 minutes from there to Florence. BA has three or four flights a day from Heathrow, and there are lots of flights through Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
    Just a heads up: They’re renovating and expanding the airport. In September is was all torn up and the parking lots had been demolished, so it was confusing to navigate and we had a long walk to the terminal around construction.
    The Pisa airport has regular flights to London and German cities and it’s quite manageable.
    The Florence airport is small and has very few flights (as I recall, there’s a limit on the size of plane that can take off), so that’s not really a flight option.

  • If you’re driving between Piedmont and Tuscany, you’ll end up on the Ligurian autostrada from Genoa to Pisa/Lucca. Be forewarned that this can be a tough drive. It’s congested, it’s only four lanes and it’s in and out of tunnels the whole way (sunglasses one moment, long tunnel the next). And there are spiral tunnels in the mountain in Genoa where different autostradas intersect and diverge underground.
    There’s really no avoiding this route (the Apennine Mountains are in the way), but don’t attempt it at rush hours, particularly around Genoa. It’s easiest on the weekend when there are few trucks.
    (I’ve driven this five or six times – the last time in September – so I have honed my strategy for it.)

  • I don’t find Italian drivers particularly aggressive or insane. They are better than New York drivers (who are mostly really inept) and way more sane than Boston drivers. The Germans are much more aggressive on the autobahns.
    Full disclosure: I drove in Boston for three years and have visited (though not driven in) Istanbul a number of times. :slight_smile:

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[cheers.gif]

As well it should be!

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Link to thread on international driving permit. Required for Italy.

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Thanks all, very helpful information. Based on the feedback I’m leaning towards getting the car rental on departing Milan to Lake Como based on John’s experience.

We fly into Milan Linate airport so I’m thinking we’ll just take a cab to hotel. Any thoughts on car insurance? Avis also offers mobile wifi option for $11 and change a day. I’m wondering if that might come in handy along the route? We’re moving our mobile service to T-Mobile and they have a monthly $25 fee I think for unlimited and no roaming. Not sure how reliable this will be in Italy.

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$11 a day sounds a lot.
Pretty much all apartments & hotels have wi-fi free for customers. So $11 a day seems a lot for having wi-fi in the car, considering it’s sole use is likely to be internet satnav. That sounds the equivalent of a $100 corkage i.e. you can use your internet satnav if you like, but we’ll get the same profit as if you’d taken our satnav!

Car insurance is generally much cheaper if organised from home, rather than taking the hire company’s offer (that’s a UK perspective, but I’d be amazed if it weren’t true from a US perspective)

Folks on travel forums sometimes buy a sim card on arrival in Italy from TIM / WIND or equivalent. You’ll need ID (passport of course is ok). It’s a little bit of hassle so we’ve not done it and someone suggested it is in theory meant to be only for Italian residents (but that this tends to be ignored). Note also there was mention that if it’s not used for a year, the sim card gets cancelled, so check this or assume this option is essentially a disposable deal. Definitely read up on this if the option appeals as there will be people with first hand experience and also info on what the deals are like.

Taxi from Linate? Being close to the city, the taxi will be cheap, drop you at the hotel, so it probably is the sensible option.

So the trip looks like
Linate → Milano (taxi)
Milano → Como → Langhe → Toscana (hire car)
Firenze?

Personally I’d lean towards keeping the car, but stay on the outskirts of Firenze, either driving into a convenient car park en-route to the city, or taking bus if there is one. You could drop the car off on arrival and stay closer to the centre, and again the airport is so close that a taxi will be inexpensive. The only hassle with this option is dropping bags off at hotel, then driving to the car drop off, then finding your way back from there to the hotel. If drop off and hotel are nearby, then this is no great hassle, but otherwise might be.

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Cross-posted from Leo’s thread asking about car rentals in Italy:

For anyone interested in buying an Italian visitors TIM SIM card, go here: Offerte Fibra Internet WiFi, Mobile, TV, Smartphone | TIM. €30, including 4 GB data and 100 minutes call time within Italy and abroad, valid for 30 days from activation. And you can top it up if you require more data or talk time, or want to extend past the initial 30 days. Pay for it online, then take the voucher and your passport to any TIM (the largest cellular provider in Italy) store and pick up your SIM card. You will need an unlocked phone. Easy peasy.

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Not to thread drift too much but ATT now allows you to access your phone for $10 a day. It works just like it does at home in regards to your data plan.

George

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Verizon has offered that for several years. It’s a great option. The only drawback is that your using your US number so it’s an overseas call for anyone calling you from Italy.

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Are there uber or equivalent in piedmont region? I.e. Can u train from Milan to morra and uber around the area?

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Don’t know about Uber. But I believe the closest you can get to the Langhe now by train is Asti, which is some distance. They’ve abandoned the local line from Asti through Neive in Barbaresco to Alba and Bra. There is no train service to Alba anymore, and La Morra and the other Barolo wine towns are on top of big hills, so they never had train service.

If you’re flying into Milan, the trains from Malpensa go to the Porta Garibaldi station, which does have connections to Asti, but you have to change trains along the way. Most long-distance trains depart from the larger Centrale station.

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Note also the old Milano-Torino ES* train route used to go via Asti, making for very fast travel, but now the ultra-fast Frecciarossa trains are non-stop.

On the upside, there was a recent regular Torino-Alba direct service introduced (this used to be only on weekends for the truffle fair), so if you want to use public transport to get close, go Milano-Torino-Alba. Use Trenitalia.com to get the times.

A few years ago there was a replacement bus service for the route that John describes between Asti and Bra (and passing through Neive), but check as that might have been withdrawn if they’re not showing it at all.

Once in the Langhe - Uber? I’d be very surprised, but you could try. There are taxis, quite a few in Alba, but once in the wine villages likely to be a small few local drivers plus others offering a more tailored services to take people round the wine regions. Check Langheroero.it listing, but also paginegialle.it (yellow pages).

Taxis ought to be quite expensive / inconvenient, especially if coming out of Alba. Here are two Alba numbers I took down for an earlier trip (but best to check anew)
Autonoleggio Albese 347 1743954
Station taxi 0173 35773

and one in Monforte
Taxi: Mauro Giacosa +328 4285368

Personally, if not taking a car, I’d be looking at one of the following

  1. Base in Alba. but focus on Barbaresco, where there should be buses to Neive and cheap taxi rides from Alba to Barbaresco and Treiso. Book winery visits that are walkable on foot (not difficult, though nice planning can have you walking through the vineyards themselves between appointments) and lunch in the village, before a final one or two afternoon appointments and a pre-arranged taxi pick up from the last winery.

  2. Choose one of the larger Barolo villages to base in, and aim to walk between the wineries. Note this leaves enormous scope for winery visits, as it’s not far to walk from (say) La Morra to Barolo, or Castiglione Falletto to Serralunga, or La Morra to Annunziata to Barolo and back to La Morra. We’ve done all of these walks, with plenty going through the vineyards that are open to all to walk through. Thus you might stay in Barolo, and on day would taste in La Morra, another near the base of Annunziata, another around Monforte. Of course you’ll have to have a rucksack for the wines you buy, but why not take a corkscrew, a couple of glasses and some picnic food to eat amongst the vines? Arrival / exit by taxi from Alba.

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“Like” [basic-smile.gif]

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Really? That’s a weird, indirect route.

Really? When I was there in September, it appeared that the Alba station had been boarded up and the tracks were overgrown.

I’d always wanted to take the train from Asti to Bra, so I was bummed that they cancelled that, though it does indicate some level of rationality in the Italian government. I’m sure it ran empty most of the time.

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Hi John
Here’s an extract of the Trenitalia schedule
SFM.PNG
the route map is here http://www.sfmtorino.it/ but note that it bypasses Porta Nuova, but does stop at Porta Susa (and Lingotto)

Peak times show as using the traditional double decker trains, with early, late and lunchtime trains using 5 carriage single deckers.

Here are the stops on one of the later trains

16:35 Torino Porta Susa
16:41 16:42 Torino Lingotto
16:46 16:47 Moncalieri
16:51 16:52 Trofarello
16:57 16:58 Villastellone
17:04 17:05 Carmagnola
17:12 17:13 Sommariva Del Bosco
17:16 17:17 Sanfre
17:20 17:21 Bandito
17:29 17:31 Bra
17:38 17:39 S. Vittoria
17:43 17:44 Monticello D’Alba
17:48 17:49 Mussotto
17:53 Alba

It should be a very useful service, so I hope it sticks.

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You have me doubting myself - I certainly caught the ES* from Torino to Asti and I know from there it stopped at Alessandria. Maybe I was confusing Milano with Bologna? Too late to check now!

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I usually rent a personal wifi when travelling overseas. There seem to be several options in Italy, the first one i found charges 6 Euros/day.

https://www.expressowifi.com/why-expresso/

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Ian - From that map and schedule, I guess they still use the line between Bra and Alba, and hence there is service from Turin to Alba. But they have abandoned the Alba-Asti line – through the Barbaresco vineyards! – as I saw last year. Now to get the short distance from Asti to Alba, you have to change in Turin.

As for the other route, Asti is on the mainline from Turin to Bologna, and on the mainline to Genoa and the western coast. Alba was always on a secondary line: