Try to request diesel cars. And watch out for the zona traffico limitato areas in city centers. Cameras will ding you.
Thanks guys for the license advice. I spoke to AAA just down the street from me and have it scheduled for next week. Had no idea it was so easy.
What does Sonny have to do with anything? I am in southern africa next month so the DL advice is appreciated here as well.
I don't know if this will tag correctly or not, but she said you can fill it out before you get there. https://www.aaa.com/vacation/application2a.pdf
And don't look or act like a tourist if possible. It's sad but the thieves have figured out when to break into your trunk and they love to steal I-pads, laptops, etc.
What we did, we spent 2 weeks in italy landed in milan, rented a toyota yaris (gasser) from avis drove str8 to lake como and stayed on the right side (cheaper hotels) and took a ferry to visit the other parts. Then drove to Verona stayed there for 2 days, then drove to Lana (cheaper hotels) there we visited merano, lago di brais (hiked there). Then headed to venice, we got a hotel outside kinda far and took the train into venice (i didnt care for venice too much as it was all touristy) then we headed to bologna, then drove to florence, then the leaning tower, then we headed to genoa and stayed off one of the cenque terres islands, you can hop all the islands. Then we went to portofina (the beverly hills of italy), then drove to the awesome la spazia beach where the locals go to hang out, and the end theres a island and many are topless. Finally drove back to milan and boarded our return flight. The highlights, I wouldnt skip lake como it was nice but pricey. You dont want to miss the norther dolomite mountains, its super epic. Lago di brais is the most photographed location on instagram, def hike around the river. La spazia cheap and was awsome beach town. When driving becareful of the speed cameras that are hidden. As for theft, I wouldnt worry about it with a car, its only when you board trains. Northern italy is very safe compared to the southern, from what I heard. We basically would find cheaper hotels outside of the main cities and look for hotels that offer free breakfast. At night we would find local foods or 5 euro PIZZA. Italy was not expensive, especially with the euro dropping. I loved every bit of Italy! I want to go again soon
Lodging completely booked, one final question...car rental in Milan. When I go on various travel sites they have companies I've never heard of with sketchy reviews, yet the bigs are double the price of them. I'm guessing there's a reason why or do only the 5% bitch the loudest? I see the post above used Avis; they're one of the twice as much companies.
Rental car counter at Milan is a nightmare. Lines are always long and the queue barely moves. I would stick to the big names only. Other option is to take the train into the city and grab a car there, but that's obviously not convenient. Avoid the airport taxis! 50 euro will get you about 10 kms.
We're leaving straight from the airport to Lake Garda, so quickest is best. I've heard it's bedlam at the counters...my favorite thing.
priceline shows quite a few for the random dates i put in - with the common names as well https://www.priceline.com/drive/sea...00/list?vrid=9aa7a5c78b8fc8d076fe26a0a162d2c0
That's what I'm using, yet there's a bunch of strange companies that when you do a google search come up with horrible reviews. Here's one such company that has lot's of cars for 1/3 of the big guys. https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTop...NOT_rent_a_car_from_Sicily_By_Car-Sicily.html I suppose I'll spend the extra bucks and go with a reputable company. I.ve been accused of being cheap
risk it, take lots of pictures of every little scratch on the car, best with a person there, have them sign that they did the walk-through and it's ok. print basic car outlines for every side, to mark errors. have the dude sign off. (rentals in europe don't have the "if it's less than a dollar bill size scratch on plastic it doesn't matter"... they will try to get every penny from you.) I've rented at MXP, and on Sicily, form cheap ass companies. had no problem.
I returned a van to MXP 5 years ago and they tried to charge me $180 for a ding in the back bumper that was there when I picked up. This was with Hertz. I even had photos of when I picked it up that showed the ding. They gave up after a couple years of trying to collect. Be really careful with those guys.
Trying using https://www.autoslash.com/ for your quote - they ask what credit cards, memberships, etc you have and run the prices using those discounts. You don't book through them, though. It's pretty popular on flyertalk. Not sure if this has been mentioned; but it looks like covid passenger locator forms are no longer needed in Italy. https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/ne...rement-extends-other-covid-19-entry-measures/
Do they have National Rental over there? Walking by that line and just getting in your car and leaving is so damn satisfying...