• CONTACT US if you have any problems registering for the forums.

Agenda for our flight back to Boston

Sheila

New Member
We will be renting a car after our 7 day stay in Florence and will be driving to Tuscany. We've rented a house for a week in Castellina Di Chianti and will use that as our home base to explore the many towns close by. We live in the Boston area. Should we drive back to Florence, drop off our car and fly home that same day or stay over night in Florence for a more leisurely trip back? I have some concerns it will be even more exhausting if we fly back the same day. I'd love to hear folks thoughts/ideas about this. We are "older" travelers.


Thanks in advance for your assistance!
 
I would absolutely drive to the airport
- Driving into cities is usually much more stressful than driving to an airport
- Heavy bags simply get dumped onto a trolley, rather than having to be lugged up/down stairs etc. Our bags are at their heaviest on the very last day of the trip
- Why add in an extra round of checking in/out and extra transfer time? (such time is invariably NOT holiday time for me. It's hassle time)
- You've already set aside the time to explore and enjoy Firenze and to do it in a good way. Trust yourselves to do it justice in that 1st leg.

This can to a degree depend on the time of the flight back. If it's 6:15am, then that really can change the dynamic and push towards not even a stay in the nearby city, but a soulless airport hotel :woot:

If it's mid-late morning, that really is ideal for driving directly there

If it's later in the day, it can be useful to plan for mini day trip to a nice place where you can happily stroll around, but which is close to the airport, to de-stress the fear of hitting traffic. e.g. Trani did that brilliantly for us when flying out of Bari.

_________________

FWIW our thinking changes in the reverse scenario. Being tired when boarding a plane is one thing (hey we might even get some sleep!), but arriving tired and being faced with a long or stressful drive is something we actively try to avoid. In such situations, we're looking for the simplest/safest of ways to get to the accommodation. It's the only time where we happily take a single night in a hotel.

Hence I like your ordering: on foot / public transport when tired from jet-lag / travelling, using that time to shake it off. Exploring the countryside with the aid of the car should be much better for being done 2nd (and it also helps you get familiar with Italian signage, anarchic as it can be sometimes).
 
Mr. Google tells me that Castellina di Chianti is only 50 minutes from the Florence airport. Unless the flight is very early in the morning, I'd just get up and go. We are "older travelers" and the less movement and stress getting home is best. When we have a direct flight from Rome to DC, we drive from Lucca to Rome and stay overnight (FCO Hilton) before flying home the next morning and it is, honestly, a pain to do that extra check-in and to eat a hotel dinner.

Florence is a difficult city to drive in -- congestion plus ZTL is not pleasant -- and a hotel convenient to any sights will not be car friendly. I'd just enjoy that last night at your base; get on the plane; sleep soundly and dream of your experiences on the way home.
 
DON’T drive in Florence! It’s just horrible and there are areas that are not passable without a special license. We drove directly to the airport from Certaldo in Tuscany (less than an hour) for a late morning flight home. Make sure the car rental has activated GPS…. It will make the trip very easy!
 
DON’T drive in Florence! It’s just horrible and there are areas that are not passable without a special license. We drove directly to the airport from Certaldo in Tuscany (less than an hour) for a late morning flight home. Make sure the car rental has activated GPS…. It will make the trip very easy!
The ZTL zones are clearly marked, but are a nuisance. The airport is outside the city and just requires a circling route around the city to reach, depending on the direction of your approach . The train station is more difficult to reach, but also has a ZTL-free path.

My least favorite brother-in-law racked up almost a $1000 in ZTL fines one year while insisting to my wife that he knew how to drive in Florence, so can be an expensive lesson (or a source of family stories for years to come when talking about this particular brother of hers).
 
We will be renting a car after our 7 day stay in Florence and will be driving to Tuscany. We've rented a house for a week in Castellina Di Chianti and will use that as our home base to explore the many towns close by. We live in the Boston area. Should we drive back to Florence, drop off our car and fly home that same day or stay over night in Florence for a more leisurely trip back? I have some concerns it will be even more exhausting if we fly back the same day. I'd love to hear folks thoughts/ideas about this. We are "older" travelers.


Thanks in advance for your assistance!
We will be renting a car after our 7 day stay in Florence and will be driving to Tuscany. We've rented a house for a week in Castellina Di Chianti and will use that as our home base to explore the many towns close by. We live in the Boston area. Should we drive back to Florence, drop off our car and fly home that same day or stay over night in Florence for a more leisurely trip back? I have some concerns it will be even more exhausting if we fly back the same day. I'd love to hear folks thoughts/ideas about this. We are "older" travelers.


Thanks in advance for your assistance!
If we fly out of Firenze we usually stay at Villa Aruch a lovely restored BnB ( ask for early checkin) located 1/2 mile from airport and 3/4 mile from car rental return. We check in then go with our car for a leisurely meal , sleep and off we go rested the next morning. Villa Aruch is closest to airport in a residential area adjacent to FLR. Google it.
 
It depends on what time your flight is from Florence. I think you will only be 22 miles from Florence, so if your flight is later in the morning and your car rental return place is at the airport, then you will have enough time to return the car and catch your flight.
 

How to Find Information

Search using the search button in the upper right. Search all forums or current forum by keyword or member. Advanced search gives you more options.

Filter forum threads using the filter pulldown above the threads. Filter by prefix, member, date. Or click on a thread title prefix to see all threads with that prefix.

Sponsors

Booking.com Hotels in Europe
AutoEurope.com Car Rentals

Recommended Guides, Apps and Books

52 Things to See and Do in Basilicata by Valerie Fortney
Italian Food & Life Rules by Ann Reavis
Italian Food Decoder App by Dana Facaros, Michael Pauls
French Food Decoder App by Dana Facaros, Michael Pauls
She Left No Note, Lake Iseo Italy Mystery 1 by J L Crellina

Share this page

Back
Top