My husband and I along with some friends are renting a house in Tuscany for a week this summer.
Last year when we rented a house in Cortona we flew into Florence, and it was pretty easy finding our way out of Florence and onto the correct highway in our rental car. This year we will be going a tiny town called Cetona on the border of Tuscany and Umbria. Rome has the closer airport, but we are worried that driving out of Rome into the country will be mighty confusing.
Does anyone have a recommendation of which airport would be better? Is Rome very overwhelming? I’ve only visited there by train before.
I don’t particularly love getting out of JFK and I’ve visited NY very often, so I feel intimidated by Rome. Not that I’ll be doing the driving, but well…I’ll be doing the back-seat-driving and navigating. Any advice would be great.
Well, I can share with you what happened on my honeymoon. My wife and I flew into Zurich and had laid out an itinerary that included (among many other places) driving from Zurich to Florence to Rome. When we got to Florence I got lost and somehow ended up VERY near the runway of the airport. This little tiny road went up to the end of the runway and then was a dead end, only barely wide enough for me to turn my rental car around on. It took about 3 forward-and-backups to turn it around. And the whole time I had a pair of carbinieri staring at me with Uzi’s hanging off their necks. Man, that was a bit intimidating. I can’t help with you with the rest of the airport experience since we flew in and out of Zurich, but I thought Rome in general was a pretty nasty city other than the ruins.
I don’t know where you’re flying from, but if it’s from the US, then you might be better off going to Rome because it’s more likely you can get a direct flight. The Florence airport only takes traffic from other European cities, so you would have to stop somewhere, change planes, and then go to Florence. Also, the Rome airport is pretty far away from the actual city, so you won’t have to drive through a big metropolitan area. To the best of my recollection, the airport is to the north of the city, so you won’t be driving anywhere near metropolitan Rome to get to Cetona (you’ll keep heading north to get to the Umbria/Tuscany border).
I agree with what delphica said, from my recolection, the airport is pretty far outside the city proper. You should be able to take a main bypass around most of the city. Which I highly reccomend. Driving in the heart of Rome is not for the faint hearted.