That said, Italians are famous for their beautiful cars but notorious for their driving. They go fast, often frenzied, and your experience with a rental can be overwhelming in Italy — especially if you’re used to the road etiquette in the US.

Tips for driving in Italy

Here are a few tips to keep you safe and sane while also saving you a handful of euros along the way. Start your engines, because it’s time to go for a drive in Italy!

Related: Search for affordable rental cars in Italy and all over Europe

Cheap is not always best when renting

There are many car rental agencies in Italy, and some of these agencies offer prices that appear too good to be true. In fact, that is exactly the case. Make sure to read the fine print and know exactly what comes with your rental.

Often a slightly more expensive option will include more comprehensive insurance, or offers unlimited mileage or throws in GPS. Reading the details and asking questions will ensure you’re not bombarded with hidden fees later on.

Here is our guide to calculating the real cost of a rental car.

A paper road atlas is great. A GPS system in your car can be even better when driving through Italy.

Don’t hit the road without GPS

Always, always pay the extra few euros for a GPS navigation system. The highways in Italy are well marked and easy to navigate, but once you enter a village, smaller roads are often unmarked and one-way streets and roundabouts can be confusing without a navigation system. If your GPS gets confused (not unusual on smaller streets), don’t be afraid to flag down a local for help.

Keep an eye out for ZTL signs like this one in Turin that mark areas where most cars are not permitted. Photo: Alain Rouiller

Never drive in the ZTL!

The Zona Traffico Limitato (“ZTL”), also known as the “Area Pedonale”, is an area restricted to limited traffic and/or pedestrians only. The only persons who may legally drive in the ZTL have special permits to do so. These include the police, public transport, and emergency vehicles… not tourists driving rental cars!

Drive on Sundays for a more relaxing ride

In Italy, large trucks can make for a very stressful experience on the roads. However, these trucks are actually prohibited from driving on the highways on Sundays, as the country has along tradition of leisurely Sunday drives through the countryside. Take advantage of this wanderlust Sunday tradition by planning to drive on Sundays if you can.

Related: Our favorite cheap hotels in the Tuscan countryside

With a little practice, you too can be buzzing around Rome in a sporty Fiat. Photo: Emanuele

Hone your instincts and your reflexes

Italian drivers are fast-paced and never hesitate. They change lanes quickly and make spur of the moment decisions. While this may sound dangerous compared to how you’re used to driving back home, it’s perfectly acceptable (and even safe!) within Italy.

In fact, drivers in Italy will expect you to act the same way when driving in their country. Being overly cautious and slow could actually make things more difficult for everyone!

Watch where you park!

Parking can be a nightmare in certain areas (especially the big cities!), as most of the country’s tiny streets were laid out centuries before the automobile came rolling along. It’s not uncommon to see cars squished into tight places or balancing on the sidewalks.

When you find yourself parking in a crowded and popular area, make sure to pay for a ticket from the nearest parking meter and then display it in an obvious spot on your dashboard. Those fines can add up fast!

Keep an eye on street signs

For the most part, street signs in Italy are intuitive and similar to those at home. “Stop”, “Yield” and “Parking” are all the same shapes and colors as their counterparts in the US. Stop signs even say “Stop” in English! Speed limit signs will be posted along highways, but remember the number is listed in kilometers, not miles per hour.

Other useful signs to know are “One Way”, which in Italy is a black arrow with the words “Senso Unico“, “No Parking”, which is a blue circle outlined in red with a red strike through it, and “Do Not Enter”, which is a red circle with a white horizontal line through the middle.

Gas stations are easy to find along major roads and sometimes even in cities like this one on via Cavor in Rome. Photo: Simone R.

Fill up with the right gas

Refueling your vehicle is very easy in Italy, as there are self-service petrol stations all along the highways. Before you fill up, make sure you know the difference between gasolio (diesel) and benzina (petrol), as well as which type your car takes. Using the wrong fuel is one of the biggest mistakes tourists make while driving in Italy. It can happen to anyone  — even experienced Cheapos!

Follow these simple tips and a drive through Italy will be a breeze! For extra fun, rent a Fiat 500 or another iconic Italian gem to make your trip even more memorable.

Also, compare rates between Italian car rental companies by doing a car rental search on EuroCheapo!

Your tips for driving in Italy

Have you driven in Italy? Share your experiences on your successes and failures behind the wheel.

The post Driving in Italy: 7 tips for staying safe, sane and on budget with your rental car appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Europe’s car train network

Car trains don’t usually feature in the regular train schedules, and are often not so easy to find out about. Europe’s largest operator is DB Autozug, a division of Deutsche Bahn, which this year celebrates 80 years of operations. Apart from a network of routes within Germany, DB Autozug operates services from seven bases in Germany to ten destinations in France, Austria and Italy.

Other car train operators to bear in mind are:

• ÖBB (Austrian Railways): Six routes within Austria plus international services to Germany and ItalyAustria plus international services to Germany and Italy
• Trenitalia: Six routes within Italy
• SNCF Auto-Train: Some two dozen routes within France including some very useful cross-country links, such as from France’s Atlantic coast to the Riviera or Brittany to Alsace
• Optima Tours run the Optima Express which makes a big leap across the Balkans from Austria to Turkey.

In addition, there are useful domestic services in Croatia and Finland, plus of course a large number of short-hop car trains that transport vehicles and their passengers through Alpine tunnels, under the English Channel or to offshore islands linked by rail causeways to the mainland (as in the case of the German holiday island of Sylt).

Car train fares

Car train services can be pricey, but at the top end they offer a very high level of comfort with overnight journeys in modern sleeping cars, along with a good on-board restaurant where you can enjoy dinner before retiring for the night. It is possible to board a train in northern Germany mid-afternoon and wake up next morning on the shores of the Mediterranean, having traveled a thousand miles but without having spent a cent on fuel.

Some operators offer discount options for travelers prepared to book very early or last minute. Early bookers with ÖBB, for example, can pick up a one way ticket for car and driver from Vienna to Hamburg from just €133, a journey which by road would take about 11 hours and cost (depending on vehicle size) upwards of €80 in fuel.

National and international services: DB Autozug

DB Autozug has a great one-way special for inner-German route, offering fares of €99, which covers car transport and couchette accommodation for the driver. For international journeys, there is a €149 fare (similarly for vehicle plus driver with couchette).

Regular fares for international journeys for those not wanting to book well in advance start at €179 for car with driver or €319 including car transport plus couchettes for up to five passengers. Not cheap, we know, but really an amazing way to start or end a European car tour. And, once your car rental company has told you that their one-way drop charge from Germany to the Med is over €400, the idea of using a car train to return to your point of origin begins to look like a decidedly attractive proposition.

Car train services are also a credible option for British travelers looking for southern sunshine who want to avoid the long grind south on continental motorways.  The DB Autozug terminal at Düsseldorf is less than a three-hour drive from Channel ports.

The post Alternative Transportation: European Car Trains appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Share your ride!

The tip that caught our eye, however, was the “Mitfahrzentrale” shared-ride service, in which automobile drivers traveling between German (and other European) cities offer up seats in their cars. Passengers joining the ride are responsible for paying only their portion of the trip’s expenses (usually covering just gas and tolls).

The car-pooling service is hardly breaking news–it’s been around since 1998 and has 700,000 registered members across Europe. Yet, it’s still not well-known to many non-Europeans.

How it works

Mitfahrzentrale is free to join and registering is a quick process. As a passenger, you simply type in the cities you hope to travel between, a date, and time (if you’re picky). The results display a list of all drivers traveling that route, departure times, how many free seats they have, and any special concerns (smoker, non-smoker, languages spoken, etc.).

The program, unsurprisingly, can cut inter-city transportation to a fraction of the cost of other methods. Beyond budget benefits, sharing a ride has some surprising social perks: Drivers, some of whom make a particular trip very regularly (for example, between Berlin and Hamburg), are able to talk to passengers during the trip, breaking the monotony, while cutting their own costs. Of course, anyone in the car could strike up a potentially long-lasting friendship.

Safety concerns

The system, however, might strike others as a bit risky. After all, who is this driver? And who are these other passengers?

Mitfahrzentrale has thought that through, of course. Passengers initially email or call the driver in order to arrange the pick-up and drop-off details. They then are encouraged to share the driver’s phone number and personal info with others, for a “safety check.”

Also, passengers and drivers may write reviews and testimonials of each other, in order to know whose car you’re about to step into. And finally, users may validate their identity by faxing in a photo-ID, which gives them “safe user” status. (Read more safety information.)

The basic service is free and open to all to join, although a “premium membership” (which costs about €20 a year) allows you to see phone numbers (side-stepping the need to email first).

Tell us what you think.

Have you used Mitfahrzentrale? How was your experience? Would you recommend it to others–and to tourists? If you’ve never used the service, would you consider it? Tell us below!

The post Germany and beyond: Inter-city car pooling with Mitfahrzentrale appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.