European trip summer 2017

[Callitaday2022]

We bought plane tickets into Frankfurt Germany, and want to rent a car and then travel through Switzerland down to Italy. Want to hit some sites in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and Luxembourg.
Would appreciate any advice and knowledge on renting a car at the Frankfurt Airport. Such as what are the better car rental agencies and also about the different insurances that you should or should not get.
What are the best ways to stay when traveling through Europe? It will be 4 adults so we're going to need a decent size vehicle and when we stay is Airbnb the best option or have you found other options to be better?

 

[Bamaman]

You really need to go to a bookstore or library and get some travel books on the countries/region you want to visit. And go to RickSteves.com and do some reading.

Since going to college in Innsbruck, I'm a little particular to Western Tirol, Bavaria and Northern Italy. Unless you have 6-8 weeks, you'll have difficulties seeing your desired 5 countries.

As far as renting cars, I usually use AutoEurope.com. I also check Hertz.com with my Gold corporate card and rent from whichever's cheaper. Not all European rental car company is created equal--even if it's a familiar name.

I prefer B&B's and most often use Booking.com. I've used AirBnB.com and they have many great properties, especially in Tuscany. VBRO is another great source for rooms.

Let us know how many days you have, and we can give you a good itinerary--not moving too fast and not moving too slow. And let us know your primary interests.

We're leaving in a month for a repositioning cruise to Rome and it'll be our second Easter in Rome in 3 years. Then, it's Budapest in an apartment.

 

[COcheesehead]

So many great things to see in that region. Renting cars in Europe is expensive, be prepared for the cost. Parking in town centers is also challenging. Have you looked at the trains? They run everywhere and are super convenient.

 

[Gumby]

Over the years, the young wife and I have seen much of Italy. If you give some indication of where you might like to go, I can give some suggestions.

 

[Callitaday2022]

Over the years, the young wife and I have seen much of Italy. If you give some indication of where you might like to go, I can give some suggestions.

Modena and Rome. Myself and my two older Sons are car people, and want to try to hit the Porsche and Mercedes museums in Stuttgart, and then hit the Lamborghini and Ferrari museums and Italy. I don't think we're going to get to the Bugatti Museum which is right on the French German border.
Going to use Modena and Rome as a base and then travel to nearby places from there. Any good ideas on where to stay in those areas?

 

[Gumby]

We have not been to Modena, but I do know Rome. My recommendation is that you stay in Trastevere, which is on the same side of the Tiber as the Vatican and the Janiculum Hill. It is the old part of Rome, with the narrow, twisted, cobblestone streets and the inviting trattorie lining them. We stayed for a week at the Hotel Santa Maria, Vicolo del Piede 2. It is a former convent, and we found it to be quite nice and isolated, despite being in the middle of everything. Hotel Santa Maria Rome .

I am linking one of my former posts on Rome, which may prove useful

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f46/paris-rome-trip-76397.html#post1569384

 

[DrRoy]

We have not done AirBNB a lot, but found it to be a mixed bag. We have done Budget rent a car, that was fine. In Switzerland I recommend the Jungfrau/Interlaken area and Zermatt.

 

[Totoro]

Just one suggestion: try and find a car rental agency outside the airport. Have one person take a taxi there, and pick up the car. Especially if one of you speaks German.

Prices for airport rentals are ridiculous. It can easily make a 30% - 50% difference.

Insurance wise: If you rent a car it's covered within the countries you plan to go to. Check it on the green insurance card that goes with the car, uncovered countries are crossed out. Eastern Europe and Turkey is usually extra. Try and compare unlimited mile deals with maximum mile ones. Those with caps charge obscene amounts if you go over, but can be a better deal if you stay under that limit.

Apart from that all the usual when renting a car short term. Don't trust, and verify ..

 

[donheff]

I drove from Zermatt once, through the mountains to Milan and the across the lakes to Verona and on to Venice before venturing down to Florence, the Amalfi Drive and finally dropped the car off in Rome. Excellent trip. Another thought would be to stay up north and cut up into the Dolomites or to come into Italy from that direction. Beautiful.

 

[COcheesehead]

Modena and Rome. Myself and my two older Sons are car people, and want to try to hit the Porsche and Mercedes museums in Stuttgart, and then hit the Lamborghini and Ferrari museums and Italy. I don't think we're going to get to the Bugatti Museum which is right on the French German border.
Going to use Modena and Rome as a base and then travel to nearby places from there. Any good ideas on where to stay in those areas?

Rome is awesome. Take at least 2-3 days to walk the central core and even with that amount of time you won't see it all.
If you are into cars, there is a formula one track near Heidelberg, Germany.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockenheimring

 

[Callitaday2022]

My wife just read reviews on Airbnb and had people complaining about them cancelling out a couple days before they were to stay and left people on the hook to try to find another place on very short notice. Anyone had any problems with this?

 

[Nemo2]

My wife just read reviews on Airbnb and had people complaining about them cancelling out a couple days before they were to stay and left people on the hook to try to find another place on very short notice. Anyone had any problems with this?

We've used them a number of times, never had a problem.......we read all the guest reviews prior to booking, and if there is a pattern of cancellations, (or generally even one), without extenuating circumstances, we look elsewhere.

 

[Souschef]

We have not done AirBNB a lot, but found it to be a mixed bag. We have done Budget rent a car, that was fine. In Switzerland I recommend the Jungfrau/Interlaken area and Zermatt.

Agree! We spent a week in the Bernese Alps, staying in Wengen. We bought a Berner Oberland pass, and used it on trains, buses, and the lake steamer. I have attached the story of our trip

 

[Hyperborea]

Modena and Rome. Myself and my two older Sons are car people, and want to try to hit the Porsche and Mercedes museums in Stuttgart, and then hit the Lamborghini and Ferrari museums and Italy.

I went to Italy in 2006 and made a trip to the Ferrari museum. We stayed in Bologna and took a local bus out to Modena. It's very close and by staying in Bologna there was more choice of places to stay and restaurants to eat at. I don't remember the place we stayed but it was an inexpensive guest house. I don't know about now, but at that time you couldn't get a tour of the factory unless you were a Ferrari owner and booked it through your dealer.

Five weeks for all the places you are planning will leave you moving along pretty quickly. On that trip we went for 3 weeks and just took in only a few highlights of Italy (Naples/Pompei, Rome, Pisa/Cinque Terre, Florence/Tuscan hill towns, Bologna, and Venice) and I think we were rushing.

Edit: One of the best car museums that I've ever been to is the Toyota Car Museum outside of Nagoya Japan. It does have a range of Toyota cars but it has everything from around the world and since the beginning of car history. It's in two buildings (one of them immense) over 3 levels. First went about 15 years ago and went back early last year.

 

[Bamaman]

Modena and Rome. Myself and my two older Sons are car people, and want to try to hit the Porsche and Mercedes museums in Stuttgart, and then hit the Lamborghini and Ferrari museums and Italy. I don't think we're going to get to the Bugatti Museum which is right on the French German border.
Going to use Modena and Rome as a base and then travel to nearby places from there. Any good ideas on where to stay in those areas?

Are you flying both into and out of Frankfurt? Or are you flying home from Rome?
Are you going to drop a German rental car in Italy?
Have you checked the distances between Frankfurt and Rome?
Have you plotted your journey on GoogleMaps.com?
How long are you going to be in Europe?

It's 800 miles from Frankfurt to Italy--12 hour drive. Because you're going into Italy, you're going to have to buy the rental car company's DPW coverage--expensive. Italian drop off fees for a German rental car would be very expensive, as they've got to transport the car back to Germany.

You're in luck to see Porsche and Mercedes factories as Stuttgart is just a 2 hour drive south of the Frankfurt Airport. Instead of staying in Modena, most people stay 20 miles east in Bologna--a great foodie city that's 1 hour north of Florence. The Ferrari Experience is now just a modern museum in Modena as their factories are closed to the general public. The Lamborghini tour is actually a factory tour, and the factory's located outside Modena/Bologna in the country.

Most people visiting Italy will base their travel on Venice, Florence and Rome--all very important cities. Rome alone is at least a 4 day city.

Starting your trip in Frankfurt will make a trip to Rome very difficult as the Alps are not easy to cross via auto. And at $4.50 per U.S. gallon for gasoline, travel in a rental car gets expensive. Switzerland is also very expensive in every regard.

You would have been much better suited to have flown into Milan and out of Rome--and skipped the Porsche/Mercedes factories on this visit. Italy is a trip to its own, as there is so much art, food, culture and history to get overdosed upon.

 

[kcowan]

Our friends always fly in and out of Frankfurt and then drive to Italy for a shoe buying trip. They claim the car rental difference pays for the trip from Germany.

 

[walkinwood]

We haven't been to the places you mention, but have experience traveling in Europe.

Car rental: Like the US, rentals made outside of airports are less expensive. Europcar, Hertz, Sixt, Enterprise & I'm sure any other big name are all good. Car rental pricing swings around more than airline tickets. You can reserve a car with no cost (usually without a credit card), so reserve one, and keep checking pricing to see if it decreases, then book & cancel the previous one. Autoslash.com helps with that. I've used them successfully. Check pricing for one way trips. I recently booked in the UK and the "drop off" charge was just GBP 50. Driving in Europe is just as easy as driving here (except maybe the big cities). Go online to learn about the road signs since they vary from country to country and are not always intuitive. Watch for speed cameras. Some credit cards will provide primary insurance when renting abroad - use them.

Airbnb: We've used airbnb. Use the normal precautions and you should be fine. Since eating out is quite expensive - and for us, it gets tiresome on a long trip - we find airbnbs to be very economical and way more interesting than hotels.

 

[Chuckanut]

Going to use Modena and Rome as a base and then travel to nearby places from there. Any good ideas on where to stay in those areas?

It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, don't even attempt to drive a car in Rome.

 

[Callitaday2022]

We found out today why the car rental rates in Germany are significantly cheaper than in Italy. Because when you rent a car in Germany most of them are not allowed to go into Italy. I suppose you could always take them but if you get into an accident or have problems it is on your dollar.
No Mercedes-Benz, Audi's, BMWs, convertibles, or any SUVs are allowed to go into Italy from rental in Germany. For that reason we ended up renting a Ford Mondeo wagon which should give the kids enough leg room and enough storage in the back to make everyone happy.
I was sort of looking forward to driving a Mercedes, Audi, or Beamer on the Autobahn at a good rate of speed. Driving my old Saab I could hit a hundred twenty miles an hour on the way to Landsthul, but anything above that got a little scary! Actually it wasn't too old of a Saab as it was a brand-new at the time 1994 Saab 900 SE

 

[COcheesehead]

We found out today why the car rental rates in Germany are significantly cheaper than in Italy. Because when you rent a car in Germany most of them are not allowed to go into Italy. I suppose you could always take them but if you get into an accident or have problems it is on your dollar.
No Mercedes-Benz, Audi's, BMWs, convertibles, or any SUVs are allowed to go into Italy from rental in Germany. For that reason we ended up renting a Ford Mondeo wagon which should give the kids enough leg room and enough storage in the back to make everyone happy.
I was sort of looking forward to driving a Mercedes, Audi, or Beamer on the Autobahn at a good rate of speed. Driving my old Saab I could hit a hundred twenty miles an hour on the way to Landsthul, but anything above that got a little scary! Actually it wasn't too old of a Saab as it was a brand-new at the time 1994 Saab 900 SE

That must have changed. We drove a Munich rented Audi into Italy without a problem. I had an international drivers license, but I doubt that would have mattered.

 

[Bamaman]

I understand why rental car companies disallow their cars to go into Northern Ireland and the old Eastern Bloc countries like Bulgaria, Romania and to a lesser extent the new Czech Republic. I think they have legal issues in such places because their laws have not caught up with the rest of Western Europe.

But people take German rental cars into Italy all the time. I've done it many times. The difference in Italy is the government requires you to take CDW coverage including theft insurance. But the insurance is relatively inexpensive there vs. the same coverage in Germany due to Italian governmental regulations setting the CDW rates.

That all makes me think there are more physical damage and theft problems in Italy than in much of Western Europe.

The truth is that most rental car optional CDW coverages in most countries is secondary to your U.S. car insurance carrier--back home. It's the same with your credit card rental car coverage--secondary to your home policy (except American Express). And to take it a little farther, most rental car companies have liability coverage, but otherwise are self insured--putting all the CDW funds into an account and hoping it's just another profit department after expenses.

 

[NW-Bound]

I just rented a Peugeot 308 SW through their long-term lease program for the upcoming road trip. There's something about normal car rentals not going over 30 days. They will give me a new car, with a buy-back (?) after the rental period is over. Sounds like some kind of red tape that mandates this method.

I chose this car after much consideration of the trunk space. We will be traveling with another couple, and even carry-ons may not fit in a car with a smaller trunk. If we travel by ourselves, can use a smaller and less expensive car, but here the cost is divided, so it is not too bad.

I bought all insurance: collision, liability, and theft. Costs a bit more, but I do not want to have to worry about it. I will pick it up at Orly, and return it there. They allow driving into Italy, no problem. Will see how I like to drive in Italy. From what I have read, they like to ride your rear bumper, and I will try to not let it bother me.

 

[brett]

It would be worth your while to get an understanding of the difference in pricing when you rent cars in various countries. Our experience is that there can be substantial differences in the bottom line costs between neighbouring countries.

We have traveled extensively in Italy. We have rented numerous times-always through autoeurope and most always a one way rental that had a very small or nil drop off fee. We typically use a combo of trains and rental cars.

Our experience in Italy is that in many places not only do you not want or need a car,having one is a huge pain. We typically use train and rental cars. Last time we rented in Florence, toured in Tuscany, Umbria, and Marche, then and dropped off in Ancona. Time before that it was rented in Florence and dropped off in Venice. No use paying parking and rental fees to have a car sit for several days. In many Italian cities there are areas of town where only locals can drive. If you mistakenly drive in the area, and are caught on camera, a fairly hefty fine will find itself to the rental firm and then on to you charge account a few months later.

We avoid renting at an airport. The rates tend to be higher and there is a much smaller chance of an upgrade. Many city rental offices are closed on Sundays. We travel with a 21 carry on roller each-for a week or for several months at a time. If you can get down to this you will be very thankful. Who wants to load and unload a car each time with too much luggage. Besides, we have rec'd some great travel advice while sitting in laundromats or sitting in outdoor cafes across the street or beside a laundromat!

Car travel in Europe is not what it is in North America.

 

[NW-Bound]

We have visited Europe several times, and traveled by train mostly. I have traveled by car in France, but not Italy.

This time, I have planned the itinerary and coordinated with the other couple so we will visit places that are easier to access by a car, and that we have not been to. I carefully check out Airbnb homes to be sure that a parking space is available. While we will be mostly in rural areas, we do want to drop into adjacent towns. I have checked out all the ZTLs and bookmarked the public parking lots. At some locations, I choose the Airbnb's that are near a metro station so we can hop on public transportation to get into town.

On this trip the highlights are Provence and Tuscany, where a car will minimize the transit time for us.

PS. For longer trips, washing clothes will be necessary. Thank goodness, nearly all Airbnb homes have a washer. Dryers are rare as hen's teeth because of their electric rate. We stay long enough at most locations to hang clothes out to dry, so it is OK.

 

[Fedup]

I didn't rent a car in Italy. Truth be told, I was nervous about those crazy Italian drivers. I never stayed in AirBnB, mostly American hotels, we wanted big king size bed and free breakfast. It worked out well for us. However we did rent a car in UK to see the Cotswold area, you can't see the countryside without a bit of driving.
We packed light as in both of us had just a small carrying on bag. We washed our clothes and hung them in the hotels bathtube.