Italy - Best by Cruise Ship or Land?

[romanroxy]

I was with 2 friends. We actually started out with a couple of days in Barcelona. Then we used Vueling Airlines to fly from BCN to Pisa. We got right on the train to Cinque Terre. We went back to the airport at Pisa when we were done in CT and picked up a rental car from Hertz. A rental car is really the only way to do the Tuscan Hill Towns. We did take the train from Pisa to Florence and also Montelupo. Just parked the car on the street and fed the parking meter for the day a couple blocks from the train station. Then, we took Easyjet from Pisa to Paris Orly and spent a couple of days in Paris.

I've had several driving trip in Europe before, so I'm pretty settled on getting around. Yeah, I mess up once in awhile, but I just turn around and go the other way. To me, it's part of the fun!!!

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Is a special temp driver's license needed for driving in EUROPE or is the one from the U.S. valid? (silly question, but I thought I read about that somewhere).

 

Are the Rental cars manual or automatic?

[euro cruiser]

An International Driving Permit is required in Italy. You can get one at any AAA office, or from their web site.

 

Most rental cars in Italy are manual transmission, but automatics are available. You must specify this when you reserve, and expect to pay as much as double the fee for an automatic (they are usually the more expensive classes of car, not the least expensive small cars).

[slidergirl]

Exactly what euro cruiser said. I pick up my IDP at the AAA office. The rental cars I've had have been a mix of manual (aka standard) transmission and automatic. Yep, the automatic will cost more. But, if you can drive either, go with the lower cost. Just be aware that the cars are smaller than here in the lower classes and it will be pretty expensive to rent a car like you are used to in the US.

You absolutely need a good map. Go to one of your big box book stores and look for the maps there. The Michelin maps are good, as are the Touring Club Italiano maps. I've had both. A GPS is fun to have, but be aware that they aren't always accurate. We had one this time (thanks to a son of a friend of my friends, who works at the Hertz office in Pisa). It worked probably 80% of the time, with the other 20% sending us to dead ends, or the wrong way on now one-way streets. Sometimes, you just have to trust the road signs and ignore everything else.

[tennisbets]

We just returned from a 3 week vacation and spent half of our time on land and half on a cruise. Since the question is, what is the best way to see Italy, I have to go with land. As MaryAnn NS said

"You need to slow down to appreciate Italy. Some of my favourite memories, driving in back roads in Tuscany; wandering the streets in Florence, Rome, Verona and Venice and not worrying about the time; sitting in the Piazza del Campo in Siena for hours just taking it all in, spending a full day in Cinque Terra by ferry, train and foot and knowing it was not nearly enough time."

These were exactly our favorite memories too. We chose Siena, Vernazza and Rome for the land part, allowing plenty of time in each to really get off the beaten path. We rented a car in Siena to explore Tuscany, did lots of hiking in the Cinque Terre and enjoyed many out of the way churches and piazzas, in addition to the major sites in Rome.

 

The cruise was lovely and it was nice to unpack and let the ship do the traveling, but I felt that we only scratched the surface of each port we visited. Although many of the ports were in Greece, not Italy, we felt we missed the full experience by eating and sleeping on the ship. Most places feel very different in the evenings, after all the day trippers have returned to the ship. We visited Sicily and Naples as cruise stops, and I plan to return to both for an extended period next time we visit Italy.

 

Several of the ports (Capri, Santorini) required a ferry or tender, a cable car or funicular, and then a bus ride to see the less crowded and more scenic parts of the island. All that time spent waiting in lines, or for buses, searching for the stops or where to buy the tickets, for just a few hours was exhausting. Since Rome and Florence are not port cities, I imagine trying to visit each in one day would be a similar experience. Not enough time to stop and smell the roses, IMO.