Shane drives
The car, and the ZTL
The ZTL will fine a hire car by post, months after you are home
Every Tuscan town, Florence and Siena and San Gimignano and the Chianti and Val d’Orcia villages, rings its centre with a camera-enforced Zona a Traffico Limitato. There is no barrier and no booth: a camera reads the plate and issues the fine automatically. It routes through the rental company, which charges Shane’s card the fine plus its own admin fee, and the paper notice can land in Australia months later.
It is about €80–110 per crossing plus €25–60 admin, and each pass is a separate fine, so one confused loop through a hill town costs several hundred euros. Google Maps does not know where the boundaries are. The rule is simple: never drive past a town’s walls. Follow the blue P signs to a car park outside and walk in.
Where to park, outside the walls
Set the sat-nav to the car park, not the town centre. Florence: leave the car at the hotel garage or a park-and-ride and never enter the historic core. Siena: Santa Caterina or the Fortezza. San Gimignano: the numbered P1 to P4 lots below the gates. The Chianti and Val d’Orcia villages are small enough to park at the edge and walk everywhere.
Book the automatic now. It is July, and that is the right time.
Italy, like Spain, is a manual market, and automatics are genuinely scarce. The guidance is to book three to four months ahead for September, which is this month. The premium over a manual is only about 10 to 15 percent here, milder than Spain, but the scarcity is the same, so reserve the automatic explicitly and early.
A mid-size automatic SUV for five to six days from Florence or Pisa airport runs roughly €400–600 all in, indicative until you pull a live quote. Watch the compulsory extras and the second-driver fee, and confirm an Australian licence plus the IDP is accepted at the desk.
The International Driving Permit carries over from the Spain plan
Italy requires the 1949 Geneva Convention IDP for an Australian driver, and driving without one risks a fine of several hundred euros. The same RACQ over-the-counter permit, A$55, serves Italy unchanged. Details. Carry it in the car at all times, alongside the licence and passport.
Tolls, fuel and the pre-dawn run
The autostrade are tolled by distance, ticket in and card out at the exit, and foreign cards work. Avoid the yellow Telepass-only lanes and do not buy a Telepass for a week. The good news: the Florence–Chianti–Siena expressway is toll-free, so most of the driving costs nothing. Budget maybe €20–40 for the week.
Fuel is dearer than Spain, and the unattended-pump trap is sharper: outside staffed hours pumps want pay-before-you-pump and often reject non-EU cards. For Sharon’s pre-dawn reposition and any early airport run, fill up the afternoon before at a staffed station and carry €50 in cash. Rural roads are narrow, winding and unlit, with the odd gravel strada bianca, so drive the airport route once in daylight first.
Two things better than Spain
Italy has a reciprocal health care agreement with Australia, so a Medicare card and passport cover emergency public treatment, which matters for Jeannine. And most of the week’s roads are toll-free. The paperwork otherwise, EES enrolment at Brussels, no ETIAS yet, and the passport validity rules, is identical to the Spain plan.