9465 wedding anniversary

Hi all,
My wife and I will be arriving in Venice by rental car on 29th July. We will be staying in Venice for 2 nights then driving on to Bologna. We can't decide on the best way of dealing with the car. Should we drop it off then rent another car two days later or should we keep it?. If we keep it, we have the option of parking at Maroc Polo Airport then taking the vaporetto or bus across to the island or driving and parking at Piazzale Roma. Because of the time of year, we have concerns about the volume of traffic heading into Piazzale Roma, and whether or not we can find a parking space. The other alternative is to drop the car with the rental company and pick up a new car for the journey to Bologna.
Has anybody ever done anything similar.
What was your experience and can you give us any advice?
Domenico

Category
Travel & Holiday Advice

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 10:08

I would drop the car at Venice and rebook another one two days later - no point in paying for parking and hiring an undriven car. Theres so much to see in Venice if you only have 2 days there's no need to leave the city. You can leave the car at Piazzale Roma, no need to go to the airport. Just watch the car hire co in Venice and make sure they agree that your car is full of fuel when you leave it. We didn't last year and they tried to sting us out of about 80€ extra when the bill came through.
Have a wonderful time - have you booked somewhere great to stay? if you look through the various posts about Venice here there are quite a few top tips about how to make the most of it.

M

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 10:32

Thank you for your advice. We actually know Venice very well. We've just not driven there before. We're staying at the Bauer Palazzo Hotel on the Grand Canal.
It's one of our favourite hotels in Italy.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 11:04

You'll need to balance the saving in parking fees and 2 days rental against extra the cost of the 'one way' car hire.

From experience - I find that car hire offices seem to use the 'one way' car hire to offload their worst cars onto another office - so beware of the 'free upgrade' to a car that is 'down the road' so you can't check it out properly until after you've signed everything away.;

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/02/2008 - 07:57

Isn't there a minimum of three days for car hire? I seem to remember being told that when we were booking a car for two days.
Lorraine

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/02/2008 - 08:38

You may be correct, but we have a business relationship with AVIS car rental,
so perhaps they are just doing a favour for us.