Car hire pick up Q from Rome-Assisi?

[misstravelbug]

Hi
after 8 nights in Rome we will be off to Assisi for a week. We leave on a Saturday and many of the car hire places I am searching in Perugia and Foligno are saying that there are no cars available.

Would you catch a train from Rome to another town, or an outer suburb of Rome to pick up a car?

We are a little reluctant to drive through the centre of Rome and I am not sure they have ZTLs etc, but even just the traffic...

thanks x

 

[artnbarb]

Have you checked with AutoEurope? They're a consolidator, and there's a link in the home page of the forums, in the upper right hand corner.

 

[Sandrac]

I sympathize! I live in Rome and can't stand to drive here. I visit Umbria several times a year and generally, I like to rent a car in Foligno after I have taken the train there from Rome. Last month, for a change, I rented a car at the Perugia railway station and that worked out okay as well.

When are you traveling? I am finding that many car rental places are closed from about mid-day Saturday and Sunday. Which makes it tricky to organize; you might have to time your trip to leave Rome by train very early in the morning to get to Foligno or Perugia by noon. (Last weekend in the Veneto, I was finding a lot of car rental places were closed all day Saturday as well as Sunday!)

I can't drive a manual transmission yet, and therefore have to rent cars with automatic transmissions. In most places, automatics aren't kept in stock and must be brought in from a larger centre (such as Rome or Florence). So, I usually book through AutoEurope, which is a consolidator as Barb points out. AE ensures that an automatic is made available for me.

Cheers,
Sandra

 

[joe]

If I have understood your question, you are saying that you don't want to exit Rome driving a car, and prefer to hire one outside of the city.

While I completely sympathize with your anxiety about driving through a city like Rome ( I just hate entering and exiting big cities by car), I think that if you look at the challenge in the right perspective, you might save yourself some hassle, especially if getting to a rail station with a family can also present some problems. I prefer to drive than use a taxi in a foreign country.
Today of course you have navigation systems at the tips of your fingers, so you can easily plan a route that avoids the problematic spots, and execute it while driving slowly and carefully (especially if you have another person in the car to help you).The emphasis should be on choosing the easiest way out, not necessarily the shortest.
Study the route carefully before you start off (even though you'll be using a navigation system), and don't lose your calm if you make a mistake - the software will re-route you. If you need to, just pull over somewhere for a few minutes to get your bearings again.

Treat the exiting of the city like any new challenge - first time around is hard, but doesn't necessarily have to end in defeat, and the experience puts another tool in your pocket for next time.

 

[misstravelbug]

Thanks guys, yes I am finding availability difficult, maybe due to it being a weekend, but then on the Monday is the same... maybe it's too far out yet as it's not until early May.
I will check out autoeurope, but manuals are fine for us as we have them in Australia.
Joe, Rome might be easier after all... they will also have a larger selection of cars maybe?
Which area would be easiest to pick up from if we are staying in campo dei Fiori?

 

[Andrew]

I would say the locations listed as "Via Veneto area" on via Sardegna. To answer a question I posted earlier that didn't get answered, after doing the paperwork at an office they send you to a garage a couple of blocks away.

From there you can get pretty easily to via Salaria, which has one or two lanes in each direction, not a multi-lane urban racetrack that provokes the most fear. Then you get briefly on the GRA and then the A1.

 

[misstravelbug]

Thank you Joe, I will check options out from that location.

 

[joe]

Thank you Joe, I will check options out from that location.

You'll have to thank Andrew - I would have liked to been able to help, but unfortunately I've never been to Rome..

 

[misstravelbug]

Oops... sorry... a huge thank you to you Andrew