Picking up a hire car in Florence, and the fines nobody warns you about

Pick the car up at the airport, not in the city, and never drive into the centre of a walled Tuscan town. Do those two things and you avoid the most expensive mistake visitors make in Tuscany, which arrives by post months after you get home.

The envelope that comes in spring

Months after the holiday, an envelope arrives from Italy. Inside is a photograph of the back of a hire car you have long forgotten, a date you have to think hard about, and a demand for money. Then a second arrives. Then a third.

You were not speeding and nobody stopped you. You drove through an archway in Florence looking for somewhere to park, and you did it three times because you were lost.

The ZTL

Almost every historic Italian town centre has a ZTL, a Zona a Traffico Limitato: a restricted zone that private cars may not enter without a permit. Florence, Siena, Lucca and Pisa all have one, and so do plenty of small towns you will drive through without a second thought.

Every way in is a gate, and every gate has a camera. There is no barrier and nobody to stop you, just a sign in Italian you will not notice while hunting for a car park. Every gate you pass through is a separate offence. Drive in, realise, and leave by another gate, and that is two fines.

The penalty is set under Article 7 of the Italian highway code as a range, revised every couple of years, and what you pay depends on the town and on how quickly you settle. The Ministry of Infrastructure's own guidance sets out how towns run them. On top of each fine, the hire company adds its own charge for passing your details on. It is in the small print, and it is per letter.

The answer is simple. Park outside the walls and walk in, which is quicker than finding a space inside would ever have been. If you are staying overnight inside a town, the hotel can add your plate to the permitted list, but only if you give it to them before you drive in. The countryside has no ZTLs at all.

Where to collect the car

At the airport. Florence and Pisa both serve the region, and the difference in driving time to most of Chianti is too small to decide anything. Collecting at an airport puts you on the main roads straight away, outside every restricted zone.

If you must collect in the city, ask the rental office for the route out in writing and check that it does not cross the ZTL. Then follow it exactly.

Which car

I spent 20 years putting vans and minibuses down lanes like these, and I would give you the same advice I gave every driver.

Book an automatic if anybody has the slightest doubt. Manuals are the norm and cheaper, but a hill start on a steep lane with a tractor behind you is no moment to rediscover a clutch. Automatics are fewer, so book early.

Go smaller, not bigger. Village streets and parking spaces here were never built for a big car. Two small cars are often better than one large one, and they settle who drives home from dinner.

But not too small if the house is at the end of a long strada bianca, a white gravel road. Ask the owner how long the gravel is and what they would drive on it. If the answer includes "you'll want something a little higher", believe them.

Before you drive away

Take the excess waiver. The lanes are narrow and the walls are stone, and the commonest damage is a scraped wheel or a clipped mirror. The waiver costs less than one scrape.

Photograph the car before you leave the car park: every corner, the wheels, the roof, the windscreen. Two minutes, and every argument at the return desk is settled.

Choose full-to-full fuel and do not let the tank run low. Many country petrol stations are unmanned in the evening and take cards only at the pump, and some of those pumps turn foreign cards away.

The first night

Try not to arrive after dark. The last stretch to a country house is often an unlit gravel road with no signal, and satnav is confidently wrong about the final 500 metres more often than it is right. Ask the owner for a map pin rather than an address, because a country address is often just a named area covering several hills.

Or do not drive at all, for a day

The one day you should not have the car is the wine day. Book a tour that collects you, and nobody has to draw the short straw.