I traveled Italy from Thursday September 25th 2025 to Wednesday October 2nd. For 7 nights in Italy I went to Rome, Dolomites, Venice, and Florence, and in this post I will talk about my review on the rental car trip around Ortisei village in Dolomites, departing from Mestre Venice, Friday 26th, returning to Mestre, Monday 29th.

Rental Car Reservation

I searched on the internet for rental car trips in Europe but there were many scary stories with the local rental agencies. So I picked AVIS one of well-known brands and booked on their official website, Thursday September 18th .

Other than AVIS there are more famous companies like Hertz but there were few favorable cars maybe because I booked just 8 days ago, and even more most of leftovers were manual, stick shift. Manuals are absolutely cheaper than automatics but I couldn't imagine driving a manual in my first Europe, especially on a steep mountains; so I booked for an automatic hybrid car out of few, for the fuel.

My reservation was from 14:30 Friday September 26th to 14:00 Monday 29th the option was Standard SUV Hybrid, Ford Kuga Plug-In Hybrid or similar. The duration was 2 days and 23 hours, and I included all possible options; cross border fee, CDW, windshield cover and theft cover and it cost 225.68 euros in 371,920 won. I definitely wanted full coverage but I didn't see the option so I skipped it thinking I might get it when I receive the car.

Rental Car Pick up

I departed early in the morning from Termini station Rome and arrived Venice Mestre station at 13:47; I had some time before reservation so I withdrew some cash and roamed around downtown. Interesting thing is unlike the famous Venice island Mestre is a city for locals and there were so many immigrants from India and Africa. I felt Italy is a multicultural country.

Mestre station is an entrance to to Venice island and there are many tourists but there are less of them as you go off from the station and go toward the downtown and I felt I was in a bad town. There is no picture I took on the day but this is the picture at 8 p.m. when I went to the hotel after Dolomites, the picture is brighter than actually was and walking this street at night feels quite different from the one in Korea.

Back to rental cars AVIS in Mestre is on the first floor of a parking building called Saba near the station. You communicate in English and get your car on the sixth floor of the parking lot. They said they had a remaining BMW and would like to get me one but I told them I would like the car I booked since I might get more expensive insurance or get in a trouble in case of an accident. You can decide flexibly on your own.

I did not get a full cover insurance when I made the reservation online and he told me I could get one during explanation so I gladly took it. I think full coverage insurance is a must for traveling abroad, since I reckon a few hundred dollars are cheaper than time, expense, and stress sorting things out just in case without the full cover.

The deposit was 200 euros and I prepaid 549.84 euros including full coverage. They charged me 349.84 euros on Monday October 13th excluding the deposit.

As expeced I did not get a Ford I reserved but a Jeep Renegade. Thankfully it was a hybrid but... I will leave the details about the car I had at the travel review section.

How to Drive in Italy

To explain how to drive in Italy in simple way to those who are used to drive in Korea: 'Always stop on red light, turn on green light'. It is almost the same to drive in Japan. when your make your turn you yield to the cars from the opposite lane and pedestrians on crosswalk.
Everything you need to know about driving in Italy: road rules, tips and useful information

ZTL

However there is a distinctly difficult point in driving in Italy and that is ZTL. You can't possibly know it and will violate it if you do not search for it. Know your ZTL. I read some posts that even travel guides and locals in Italy passed the zone and got fined for it.

ZTL stands for Zona Traffico Limitato and it means traffic limit zone and it is to block traffics within the protected area such as old downtowns. You can tell ZTL by road signs with a red circle with letters ZTL or the Italian words above.

But it is hard to notice the signs while you are driving on an unfamiliar road in a distant foreign country, and it may be too late by the time you recognize the sign. Thankfully they have LED signs in big cities such as Rome but other than those places they have only one sign. The Image below shows ZTL signs which I took in Florence. You can see there are an LED and a road sign.

They say locals, guests staying in the area, people with disabilites are exempted but it involves complicated registration processes. I excluded ZTL from my routes entirely and studies about it in advance.

On top of that they say there is no navigation applications that can completely support excluding ZTL from route. I chose Waze since I heared it has better ZTL supports than Google Map does. But it was worse in other aspects (I recall I could not select the starting point. Only the current location.) So I used Google Map for the route I have been to once. https://www.reddit.com/r/ItalyTravel/comments/16d9bao/how_to_avoid_ztl/ https://medium.com/waze/driving-smarter-and-greener-with-waze-for-ztl-critair-b10080a6f91a

I think that is because the ZTL concept is quite unique; it is not a highway or toll road but a public road that can be used by specific vehicles. I googled for ZTL areas in Mestre where I rented a car and it showed me several related webpages and luckily they did not overlap with my route on Google Map.

But be careful since they have ZTL areas not just in big cities but also in small towns namely Ortisei. I thought they didn't have one in Ortisei and just departed, it did not show up on the internet maybe because the town is small. The most frequently encounter ZTL in the middle of the town is a pedestrian only and they block cars with roadblocks and it is a relief, but be careful as there is not only one ZTL in Ortisei and there are a few in other towns.

So you need to learn the below before going to travel.

• ZTL zones in traveling cities
• If accommodations are inside the zone; if so ask to them
• If I am eligible for the exemption

I would rather exclude ZTL for my inner peace.

Using Toll Gate

Highway in Italy is similar to one in Korea. Whether it is from Italy or Korea you need to cautiously choose lanes when entering the toll gates. Telepass which is Italian Hi-pass goes to Telepass only lane, cash to cash lane, and card to card lane and that is all about how to use toll gate.
For your information I paid at toll gates just fine with a Toss Bank card.

With cash and card you get a ticket entering highway and you hand over the ticket and pay once you get out. Each lane has a sign and it wasn't that difficult to understand. Card lanes say CARTE and cash lanes has coins and banknotes. With a hand in the sign it says it is manned toll gate and without one it is an unmanned.

For more about how to use toll gates refer to the links.
Everything you need to know about driving in Italy: road rules, tips and useful information
Payment at the toll gate
이탈리아-렌터카-여행을-계획한다면(in Korean)

From Venice to Dolomites

I took highway through Verona and Trento to get to Dolomites from Mestre, Venice. The highway is right next to Mestre station so you can't encounter a ZTL if you go to the highway right away. Keep the first lane clear unless you are passing someone and you won't have no big problem on highway. There were many two lane road sections and it was interesting to witness tens of gigantic trailer trucks driving on the second lane in a row which is not usual in Korea.

My hotel sat between a small town called Waidbruck and Ortisei so I exited the highway at Chiusa toll gate. It cost me 22.5 euros, 37,080 won from Mestre to Chiusa. I began my journey from Mestre at 14:51 and arrived at the hotel 18:20 and this somewhat long trip took me 3 hours and 19 minutes excluding 10 minutes for a service area. Google Map says it is 297 KM long.

I stopped for a break at Sarni Isarco Est which is almost before Dolomites. The restroom was free and there were lots of people. Crowed with German and Chinese tourists.

I became nervous as I approached the exit gate but the car right in front me was flustered maybe because it's her first time. Gratefully I sat there and waited. At the unmanned toll gates it was a little confusing where to insert my card but you can find the right one once you take it easy.

Parking Lot in Ortisei

Ortisei is a small town which is located at a valley among the high Dolomites mountains and you can go from here to several landmarks directly such as Seceda, Alpe Di Siusi with cable cars so being a transporation hub it is great for a base camp by staying or parking.

It is more than a small town and has a few parking lots around the town. Each landmark has its own parking lot and Seceda has one near the cable car platform. They have competitive parking and high fees as they sit next to the tourist spots. The image below shows notice for Seceda Parking lot fee and they cost you 2.8 euros, 4,614 won in daytime.

I parked in Central parking lot instead.

As the name says Central parking lot is at the center of Ortisei and its facility was nice and the rates were comparably cheap. It is a parking building, an underground parking lot and you enter at the top and leave at the bottom. There are only one entrance and one exit for cars but it has several entrances for pedestrians so it's convenient as shown in the image.

The fee is 1.9 euros every hour. You get a parking ticket upon entering, and pay before you exiting with a pay on foot machine at a pedestrian exit.

I had learned that in Italy mostly you estimate your parking time and pay for it in advance so it was confusing, but logically, as you dont need to prepay at a parking lot with a barrier at exits so you don't need to prepay upon your entrance but right before your exit. And this Central parking lot also expects you to pay when you exit.

Even if you forgot to prepay at a machine or you did not go out right after your payment, there is a payment machine at the exit so there is nothing you need to worry about.

One more thing, there is a town called Seis am Schlern which is 25 minutes away from Ortsei by car. This small town is located to the west of Alpe Di Siusi with a Mart Despar and a cable car to Alpe Di Siusi. At the cable car platform there is a big parking building and it is free to park your car. If you want to get to only Alpe Di Siusi and save up your budget this will be a good option.

Fueling

In Italy if you use a credit card at a gas station, depending on the company, they will place a large deposit and then cancel the remaining amount right away, or a few day later, or otherwise they will give you a comparable mileage. This can be a quite hassle so I used only cash at gas stations. But be careful in some cases with cash they won't give you changes. Gas Stations in Italy Gas Station Payment
So at a self service station I paid with cash to the amount small enough to fit into the tank and went to a Servito gas station to fill up before returning the car.

Before the return I asked them to fill up at a gas station Distributore IP near Mestre station and got inside the store together and paid in cash. The fee was 32.65L * 1.899 euro/L, that is 62 euros. I got a receipt upon requesting Ricevute. The attendants were helpful. By the way the rental car company said they did not need the receipt as they can see the fuel gauge on the dashboard. But keeping one is safe.

Rental Car Travel Review

Car Review

The car was Renegade from Jeep. I did not like this car that much. It was a compact SUV but felt a little heavy, especially handling. And about the options, you never know what options you will get with your rental car so you need to be prepared for anything but it was really bare-bones without a rear camera. I expected that I would get one without 360° around view or sky view, not without rear camera in 2025. Luckily it had a rear proximity sensor so I depended on it with some worries.

The funny thing is the car without a rear camera had a line departure sensor. It was helpful when driving on a highway.

And it had no planted navigation system. Even if it had one I guess I would not use that one but a smartphone app but I wished I could see a map in a big display.

As of speaking if you are planning to use map application get a smartphone holder with you. I brought one from Korea. They had nice one that can be attached to the dashboard. As long as you fix it on the dashboard firmly you can have your smarphone stabilized. 다이소 대시보드용 흡착식 거치대

The hardest part with the car was this; in the second day morning I departed from the hotel and I had Check Engine light not long after.

At first I thought it was temporary but it did not go away after turing the engine on and off several times. I tried to call the office about the problem and get some help, and it was Saturday before noon but most of European rental car offices run until noon on Saturday and close on Sunday. Luckily I had a internet call voucher from E-sim dealer, so I called them as quickly as possible one and half hour before them closing but did not work maybe because there is some connection problem or they did not respond. As a last resort I called 24 hour roadside assistance of AVIS but they said they had nothing they could do about it.

The best option is to contact the office but it would took 3 and half hour to get there so I gave up at last. I don't know how to fix the car and I thought it would give me another problem if I went to nearby repair shop and fix it so I tried to make some evidence about 'I did not any strange thing on the car and I tried to contact the office but did not make it' and drive the car as little as I could.

Fortunately I could drive the car to Venice Mestre and reported the problem upon the return and they said they could not compensate the issue since there had been no actual problem. I knew the point and had been more worried about them coming after me but they just let me leave and no problem so far. I wish I had drove other places had the car not had any problem..

And even with full coverage insurance I filmed walking around the car right after pick up and right before return. With a video I felt relieved and liked to do so.

How to Drive

How to drive in Italy is not that difficult. You yield to pedestrians, turn left and right cautiously on green light then you will have no problem driving.

But the parking system was a little difficult. But you can handle it if you study in advance but the real problem is ZTL. You don't know where you would meet ZTL so need to be alerted all time. More than that some ZTL zones have some details listed below but I could not understand them cause they were in Italian.

The fines are quite heavy. It seems they are around at 100 euros; that means you take your eyes off the road and you are fined 160,000 won. You do not receive one right after you committed; some says after 6 months and other says a year after. I got nothing until now but sometimes I still get anxious that I might get 100 euro fine one day.

Driving Culture

Driving culture was one unexpected difficulty to me. I thought Itailian people are laid back so their driving would be also be like that and I was wrong. You would understand that I am not telling you 100% lies if you have driving experiences in both countries. In my experience driving in Italy was a bit trickier than one in Korea. Maybe it was because I was too neverous in a foreign country.

First of all they change lanes without turn signal on a highway. They keep the first lane clear better than Koreans do but it's hard to see someone actually use turn signal. I think they don't feel the need to use one if there is no car nearby.

And Dolomites. They keep tailgating me right behind me on such a steep mountain roads. I thought I was speeding at 50 KM/h and they just keep tailgating me. I wished I could let them go first but there is hardly any space to yield on a two-lane roads in two directions with no sidewalk. I managed to find a space and watched them how fast they would go and they disappeared into the distance at 70 KM/h on such an alpine roads...

It won't apply to everyone since I am bad at driving. But still be careful when you drive especially in a country far away from home.