Driving Lake Como to Florence

My wife and I will be driving from a hotel in Lake Como to Florence. I plan on dropping the car off at a Hertz dealer outside the city limits of Florence. Looking at the map we can stop for lunch in Parma and maybe see Bologna for a short visit on the way. Any pointers in terms of parking in these towns and the feasibility of driving and touring along the way? Plan on leaving early after breakfast around 9AM in Lake Como and want to get to Florence by 5.

Perhaps slightly out of the way from the most direct route, but I would highly suggest stopping in Lucca and Pisa if you haven’t been to either city.

Parma is cool and has a nice central with churches, restaurants, and parking near it.

Food in Bologna is supposed to be the best in Italy but not that pretty.

Make sure to pull into an Autogrill on the autostrada just for giggles and a bathroom break. It’s like an Italian deli and truck stop.

The better drive is down to La Spezia and thru Lucca. You’re in beautiful Tuscany.

Thru Bologna is just farm country.

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It’s almost 5 hours without stops on the most direct route.

I’d vote for Bologna, it’s right on the way, has interesting architecture. It’s been a while, but I loved Da Cesari.

Personally, I’d take the boat to Varenna, and take the train.

We stayed in varenna because of the train. Right there.

In whatever city you ultimately decide to stop in, be sure to avoid the ZTL. It’s a hefty fine.

Modena is a very charming city and parking is not bad. Giusti for lunch is a special experience and the wine cellar is excellent.

I was thinking about Modena and bypassing Parma. Any interesting landmarks to see? I assume there are special balsamic vinegars to sample.

Our favorite was the tour of the Ferrari factory in nearby Maranello.Modena is a charming city with a great city center area for exploring.

Did a balsamic vinegar tasting while in Modena. It was in a gourmet shop in the center of town. We tasted 5, ranging from a basic (to use in salad dressing) to a super concentrated one (to pour over ice cream?). Bought a couple of the second best (the top one was a little too pricey to justify (but did think about it).

If reducing driving time is the preference, then maybe Parma or Modena (Reggio was fairly anti-cars when we stayed there and Bologna is a big city, so driving in not really practical, the ring road especially is pretty scary and I daresay much of the centre is subject to the ZTL zoning). Sant’Ilario is quite plain but we found it pleasant enough.

However for each of the cities, it can be a stressful experience driving into them, just for lunch and at most a quick stroll. Thus I’d be thinking about finding a modest/good restaurant in the country, but close to the E35. We’d always much prefer somewhere less built up, easy to park at the restaurant and where a quick stroll around the village was enough to prepare us for getting back on the road. If this appeals, might be worth checking out the area around Sasso Marconi, as at least you get some hills and more scenery there. Getting a nice 30 minute rural walk after the meal would appeal to me more than trying to squeeze any more meaningful sites in. If driving on a Saturday or Sunday, it also opens up many agriturismi for lunch, though I’m not sure a multi-course meal is ideal for driving afterwards!

If you’re happy to extend the drive by an hour for better scenery, then I can understand diverting via La Spezia / Lucca route. I doubt we’d do it, but depends how you see the driving.

Worth giving Barry’s suggestion serious thought as well. There is a degree of convenience with the car (including avoiding lugging heavy bags around), but boat and train gives you relaxation & look at the scenery time.

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It looks like there is a parking lot at the edge of the town where you can walk to the city center within a few minutes. Anyone know if in Modena there are those ZTLs like in the bigger cities? Also there is an Acetaia where you can take a tour, learn about balsamico production and do a tasting nearby, one called Giusti and the other di Giorgio. Anyone been to these?

For ZTLs it’s usually as simple as typing “ztl modena map” into your preferred search engine and looking at the images. Occasionally they expand (as it did in Alba recently), so worth also briefly scanning the hits to see if there is mention. I just ran a search & there are plenty of images of the ZTL.

Definitely a good idea to plan the car park, and the route to get there. Whilst you are doing this, you can also plot the nearby restaurants, so you’ve got options to pick from without feeling lost in a foreign city.