Florence Forum: Florence car rental/train station

Don't rent a car to be driving in Florence; you're setting yourself up for some hefty fines because of the ZTLs. If you're planning to rent a car to leave Florence and drive into Tuscany, Hertz has an office about 400 yards south of Santa Maria Novella train station. We've also rented from AutoEurope.com which is a broker and gotten our cars from Hertz at the same office. We normally find pretty good deals through them.

AutoEurope has office on Via Borgonissanti (sp?) that is not far from train station and good location for heading out of Florence. You do not want a car in Florence as others have mentioned

LBToni

You are the victim of a deception - whether the deception is deliberate, I do not know.

The teensy-tiny storefront in the Borg'Ognissanti is "AutoEuropa" - not "AutoEurope".

There is absolutely no connection between the two - and there used to be a little sign in the AutoEuropa window to that effect. I have not looked recently to see if the sign is still there.

AutoEurope is a large travel agency. It does not have any store-front shops that I know of. It does not rent any cars of its own.

AutoEurope does business entirely through large, established car-rental firms, such as Europcar, Avis etc.

All I know about AutoEuropa is that they are not AutoEurope, they very rarely have any customers at all, and, on the few occasions when I have seen or heard customers there, they don't seem happy.

I'm not a victim of deception, I have used Autoeurope (I know it's a broker) I have picked up a car from Florence location at Via Borgo location. Many in TA boards are wondering which AE location to choose for Florence.

LBToni

Then you are simply wrong. You did not pick up a car rented from AutoEurope through the office of AutoEuropa.

You may well have picked up a car rented through AutoEurope from Europcar, which has a rather large office in Borg'Ognissanti. Avis, Budget, Thrifty, Sixt, and I don't know who else also have offices in the Borg'Ognissanti. Hertz and Auto Maggiore/National have offices around the corner in the Via Missimo Finiguerra.

The bottom line: AutoEurope does not have an office in Florence. There is an office with the name AutoEuropa - but that office has nothing whatsoever to do with AutoEurope.

I booked a car through Autoeurope. The location of the car pickup and drop off was on Via Borgo. The original poster can contact AUTOEUROPE and check locations in Florence, that was all I was stating.

Dorothy

Check with www.autoeurope.com for a rental car. You can search TA forums for numerous posts of others who have used them.

LB

You said "AutoEurope has office on Via Borgonissanti (sp?)".

It simply isn't true.

AutoEurope has no office in Florence.

"AutoEurope" and "AutoEuropa" are not one and the same.

Uncletomaso is correct. You may well have booked through the broker autoeurope and picked up from one of the big firms which have offices in Borgo Ognissanti, but autoeurope itself is just a broker and does not have an rental outlet there or anywhere else. The important thing to point out is that autoeuropa is a rental firm with a poor reputation which gets its business from precisely this kind of confusion.