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The first post in this series, on planning, packing, and flights, is here. We will get to some gorgeous artworks, but the first couple posts in this series are more in the way of public service announcements: the answers to questions I wish I’d known enough to ask before I traveled to Italy.

Renting a car at Florence Airport

• Booking a car. My husband booked well in advance, online. That was a very good thing, since due to a flight delay, we appeared at the rental office half an hour before they closed for New Year’s Eve. I’m not sure the agent would still have been there if we hadn’t had a reservation.
• Car-rental offices are NOT inside the terminal at Florence airport. (On Florence’s airport, see last week’s post.) Go outside and look for the shuttle to AUTONOLEGGIO. It takes you to all the rental places, about a a 5- or 10-minute ride.  The shuttle runs every 10-15 minutes from about 6 a.m. to midnight. While you’re waiting for the shuttle, be sure to check the signs for the shuttle’s hours, if your return flight is very early or very late.
• Picking up the car. The shuttle bus passes a row of one-story buildings with lit-up car rental signs. Guess what: that’s not where the agents are! To reach the agents, you have to enter the big brown brick building on the far side of the shuttle’s turning circle. The rental offices inside the building are supposed to be open from 8 to 8 – but check with the company when you make the reservation.
• Returning the car. In your GPS, enter “Florence airport rental car RETURN.” If you put in “Florence airport rental car,” GPS will take you to the rental-car shuttle station just outside the terminal. After you do that 3 times at 4:30 a.m., you’ll be wondering why you didn’t learn to curse in more languages.
• Filling up the gas tank before return. We diligently tried to fill the tank before returning the car, but couldn’t find a gas station near the airport that was open at 4:30 a.m. So we returned the car with only 7/8 of a tank. I’m not sure if they charged us for the missing 1/8 tank. If they did, it was small amount.
• Key drop-off. Our flight was at 6:30 a.m. The rental offices don’t open until 8 a.m. It took us 15 mins. or so of wandering around to figure out that the key drop-off box is by the Europcar office in that row of one-story buildings … the buildings that were no use when we went to pick up the car.
• Excess of caution. Since no one was around when we dropped off the car, we took photos of it from all sides to show there was no damage, and we made sure one of the photos included the sign showing what slot we parked it in.
• Getting from rental return to the airport terminal. If the shuttle’s not running, it is possible to walk from the rental offices to the terminal, which is on other side of the autostrada (a major highway). It’s a bit complicated, but GPS will get you there. At 5 a.m. there wasn’t much traffic, so walking with suitcases felt pretty safe. I would NOT want to walk that route later in the day, when traffic is heavier.

The car(s)

• Small cars. Europcar gave us a Fiat 500L, which is apparently on the large side for a car in Italy. In the US, it would barely make it out of the “compact” class. A small car is, in fact, a good thing: Italian streets and parking spaces are not amenable to Escalade-size vehicles.

• Manual shift. If you’re comfortable driving a stick shift, it’s really useful when driving in the Tuscan hills.
• Diesel. The Fiat’s diesel engine had a disconcerting habit of sounding like it had stalled at red lights. But when Sal hit the gas, it was clearly still running. They tell me that’s a Diesel Thing.
• Diesel additive. Halfway through our 10-day stay, the Fiat’s check-engine light came on. The car apparently needed a dose of some blue stuff that cuts down on emissions. If it doesn’t get the dose within 100 km or so, the car will no longer start, and it takes a mechanic to restart it. We couldn’t find the blue stuff at the gas station or supermarket near our hotel. Europcar told us to bring the car to the Pisa airport (we were closer to it than to Florence), where they gave us a whole different car, an Opel Crossroads.
• Reverse. In the Opel Crossroads, you have to lift a ring directly beneath the head of the gearshift to go into reverse. We had to read a car manual in Italian to figure that out. Whoops: that’s the sort of thing one should sort out before setting out from the parking lot, not while trying to parallel park.

Driving in Italy

Driving in Italy is not for the faint of heart, in the city or in the highway – and I say that as someone who’s dealt with both aggressive New York City drivers and monster trucks in Florida. Italians drive quickly and pass a lot. Driving among them takes good reaction times and a certain amount of courage.

• Roundabouts / traffic circles. In Italy, there are far more traffic circles than traffic lights. Traffic circles are efficient, but they’re startling if you’re used to having drivers come to a full stop before turning. You need to know who has the right of way (the car in the circle), and you need to be able to calculate whether you can slip into the traffic already in the circle. Our scariest driving moment came in a Florence traffic circle at dusk, during rush hour, when a kid on an electric scooter decided not only to enter a traffic circle, but to switch lanes while cars were maneuvering around him at twice his speed. Fortunately Sal has fast reflexes.

• Note: on New Year’s Eve, by 10 or 11 p.m., we didn’t see anyone who was obviously driving drunk.

Parking (Italian: Parcheggio)

• Street parking. Yellow lines mean the parking is for residents only. Blue lines are paid spots. To pay, you make a note of your license plate and find a ticket kiosk. Sometimes there are limits to how long you can park in a blue space, so check the nearest sign.
• Parking garages. Large garages in city centers (often underground) are marked with a large white “P” on blue, and will often have a sign showing how many spots are available. Some will read your plate and print the number on a ticket as you drive in. You can find these by searching “Parcheggio” in Google Maps.

ZTL

ZTL stands for “Zona a traffico limitato,” i.e., limited-traffic zone. In Florence, the entrance to such an area will have a flashing ZTL sign.

• You can’t drive in a ZTL unless you’re a resident or a delivery vehicle.
• You can’t park in a ZTL unless you’re a resident.
• Fines for entering ZTLs are high: don’t go there.

• This post has lots of useful information on Italian highway and street signs: https://mominitaly.com/italian-road-signs/

Toll roads

Leaving Florence one night at rush hour, the GPS put is on a toll road. We had no idea which lane to get into to pay with cash. We randomly got into the far left lane, with EU symbols above it. No attendant, no credit card machine. When Sal pushed the buzzer for assistance, someone just opened the gate, rather than sending a person over. Two months or so later, we received a bill for passing through without paying, about 20 euros.

• Toll signs, briefly: white is cash, blue is credit cards, yellow is Telepass (EZ Pass equivalent).
• The car rental company offered us Telepass, for a fee. We only would have used it twice on this whole trip.
• Toll gate signs explained at https://mamalovesitaly.com/autostrade-italian-toll-roads/.

Next week: Florence.

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