Tuscany Road Trip!

Tuscany of Italy's most popular Regions. It is the home to the birthplace of the Renaissance and to some of the most fantastic art ever created.  Full of spectacular hill towns and vineyards, Romantic Tuscany has been hosting visitors for centuries.  We found the best way to see Tuscany, is by car.

Our Fiat Punto

Our adventures in Tuscany were about to begin!  We booked a rental car on the internet through Europecar.  TIP:  ITS ALWAYS CHEAPEST TO BOOK A RENTAL CAR IN ADVANCE FOR EUROPE.  I suggest you find a comparison site like Kayak.com to help you look for the cheapest rates, but they are all quite similar-about $230 per week.  All you need to rent a car in Italy is your driver's license from home and an International Driver's Licence you purchase through CAA.  Although the Italian rental agencies don't ask for your IDL, if you get pulled over by the traffic police you can be fined heavily.  You will find most cars in Italy are standard, so if you need to rent an automatic you will have to request it at booking, and it will cost more to rent.   Something to keep in mind when renting cars in Italy is that cars are much smaller as fuel is costly and the narrow streets of the old towns can only accommodate small vehicles.  So you may be in trouble if you tend to pack a lot of luggage!  

Typical Tuscan Village Street

If you are renting a car in Rome, you are most likely to pick it up at Termini train station.  We have rented vehicles from other pick-up locations in Rome, but Termini Station is very centrally located with excellent public transport access.  TIP: Always check the address of the car rental place. Sometimes a "downtown" location is actually a suburb, and you would have to take an expensive taxi ride to get there. Rather than pay for a taxi, we spent the morning walking across Rome with our suitcases in tow, from the Colosseum to Termini Central rail station to pick up our rental car.  It was a nice walk, and it was way less confusing than navigating the busses or metro for us on our first trip to Rome.  When we arrived at Termini, however, we could not find the car rental location anywhere!  TIP: All the car rental offices are DOWNSTAIRS inside Termini station.  The train station has two levels; upstairs or street level is for all the train departures, and downstairs is where all the car rental agencies are located.  We waited in a queue for 2 hours to pick up our car (and we were 4th in line), which is completely normal when you are in Italy.  Get used to line-ups, keep reading material with you at all times to stay entertained, and learn to just roll with it.    

When In Rome...

Finally, we got our little black Fiat Punto, and we were ready to head North to Tuscany.  One of my concerns when planning this trip was driving in Italy; especially in Rome.  Yes, it's true Italians are quite aggressive drivers compared to North America.  Driving in big Italian cities is chaotic, highways are nerve-wracking (someone is always crawling up your tailpipe), but the Italian countryside is indeed a joy.  My then-husband navigated the streets of Rome like a real pro, which shocked me because he is such a cautious driver at home.  He described driving in Rome like this: "It's just like a big free for all, and you know every driver is going to do what is best for themselves; so in that way, you know what's predictable."  The Vespas are out of control though; you just have to trust they know what they are doing!

Our Farmhouse In Cortona

We set up our Garmin GPS for Cortona and headed North to Tuscany.  TIP: bring your GPS from home rather than rent one from the rental car agency. This saves you some money and lots of frustration from trying to learn a new system.  Use a GPS that is familiar to you; if that is your cell phone then make sure you have the appropriate maps downloaded and/or you have a good data plan.  
Once we hit the ring highway around Rome, navigating was comfortable, and the signage was excellent.   We decided to take the fastest and most direct route: the A1 Autostrada that runs North-South across Italy.  The Autostradas are a toll highway system in Italy.  Figuring out how to use the Autostradas was a little more chaotic, but after getting stuck at the first one (like stupid tourists because we couldn't find our ticket), we got the hang of it.   For a great quick tutorial video on how to use the Toll Highways or Autostradas in Italy check out this detailed VIDEO on Vimeo.

The Church Up The Hill

Arriving in Cortona in the late afternoon, and trying to find the farmhouse we rented through VBRO was like a crazy scavenger hunt! I can't believe some of the steep laneways we had to drive down; it felt like being at the top of the wooden roller coaster at an amusement park! An entirely different set of driving skills is needed for small hilltowns. The stone farmhouse that was to be our home for the next week was perched on the mountainside halfway between the Tuscan hilltop town of Cortona and Camucia on the valley floor.   The 700-year old farmhouse had been divided into three self-contained apartments for rental accommodations.  We had a two-bedroom flat on the ground floor that had no views but stayed nice and cool in the late summer heat.  The farmhouse grounds were relaxing and surrounded by beautiful olive groves and pomegranate trees; there was even a small pool for Liam to swim in.  The best thing about the property was the sweeping vistas of the valley below and hearing the tolling of bells from the nearby church echo across the valley.  

It was such a relief to be out of the bustle of Rome!

Tuscan Sunset

Watching The Beer Bubble

Then it was time to relax. OK not really- we were curious and absolutely starving, which is ALWAYS the recipe for a great Italian adventure! After unpacking the Punto, and meeting the Australian couple who were in another flat of the farmhouse, we decided to walk into Cortona for some groceries.   TIP: Traffic is limited to "local traffic only or ZTL" in most Tuscan hill towns. You risk huge fines of €100 plus by entering these restricted zones!   You will not even know you've gotten a fine until you receive the bill on your credit card from the car rental agency.  Streets are narrow, one-way lanes and parking is almost non-existent; so if you can, leave your car at home.  
We (almost literally) crawled up the steep hill to Cortona just in time see the shops close at 8:00. Wait! What???  TIP: The countryside village shops close early. We were used to Rome with its late-night shops!  Most stores also tend to close after lunch for a few hours, so plan your shopping accordingly.   We strolled the streets doing the evening "passeggiata" with the locals keeping our eyeballs peeled for a place to eat. Spotting a table at a trattoria in Cortona's main piazza, we had our first Tuscan meal that was all home-made local specialties and SO delicious.   

Details On Our Antique Bed

By 10:00 we tumbled back down Cortona's hill, following the full moon through the maze of streets back to our farmhouse.  It was so warm out for mid-September, so we sat in the garden for a while sipping some wine and planning out our next day's activities before climbing into our antique bed and let the crickets sing us to sleep.

Buonanotte!

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