It’s really hard to answer the question “Should you hire a car in Italy?”. It depends on:

1 Where you want to visit – if you want to visit a one or a few major cities such as Rome, Florence. Venice a car is just a pain in congested traffic and one way systems, difficult and expensive to park. It’s much better to walk around, use public transport or taxis.

2 Where you want to stay – if you want to stay in a rural location e.g. a villa in the Tuscan countryside you’ll probably need to hire a car to get to your villa, do grocery shopping and visit some nearby villages.

3 Your nervous disposition – if you can cope being constantly honked, crazily overtaken, and are good at squeezing into tiny parking spaces.. I must admit that I find it really stressful and until recently I used to drive around 20,000 miles a year in the UK annually, so I’m a pretty experienced driver.

4 Your budget – car hire in Italy is pretty expensive, at around £150 a week for a super mini, about 50% dearer than Spain and fuel costs 1.5 euros a litre. Obviously the more passengers the more cost effective it becomes.

Castliogne del Lago. Lake Trasimeno

We hired a car for our one week tour around southern Tuscany and Umbria during the last week of May 2008. To visit all the locations such as Lake Trasimeno, Spoleto and Gubbio in one week we had to have our own transport. It cost £157 for a 7 day hire through Economy Car Hire for a Renault Clio with no insurance excess to pay and 2 named drivers. We paid 85 euros (approx £65) for unleaded petrol coming to a total of around £220 or £110 per person which is pretty good value for a weeks transport.

My husband did the majority of the driving, partly because I’m better at navigating and deciphering one tiny road sign with arrows which points in an indiscernible direction.  I chickened out as I couldn’t face the aggressive driving style on roads which I’m convinced were much narrower than those in the UK, even on dual carriageways.

However it was quite nerve wracking, one evening we got totally lost and disorientated in heavy traffic trying to find our hotel in Treni. We just had to stop and take some deep breaths. Luckily we found a bus route map in bus shelter and we able to work out our own directions to the hotel.

On the other hand we saw so much beautiful scenery and found some idyllic spots and had flexibility about where and for how long we stopped at each location. Having the car was very convenient for example we’d carry a thermos flask and various provisions in the car so we could have refreshment and picnics at scenic locations. We didn’t have to carry our luggage to stations, on and off trains or to our hotel.

So as every no easy answer to the question, “Should I hire a car in Italy?” You have to carefully consider what you want from your trip in Italy and decide if car hire is appropriate for you.