Car seats in Italy - advice, please?

[jkklpu]

I've heard that kids' car seats in hire cars in Italy aren't that great. Does anyone have experience/advice? We'd like to hire a car there later this year and would need a 1-3yo seat and booster for an older child.

Thanks a lot.

Take your own

Depends who you hire from and which airport you're going to. If it's a bigger airport you might be better off, although we went to Rome Ciampino which is huge but chaotic (where all the charter companies fly). I went last summer with my sister and her family. I had a 17mo and we got a car seat I wasn't that happy about although it was ok, I'd been to an online car hire company (got cheapest one I could find!). My sister had a 17mo and a 3yo and they got fantastic car seats, Britax I think, which had hardly been used. They used one of the main car hire companies and had got a bigger car (and so spent more money). Don't know if any of this is significant, but I think you'd be ok if you used one of the more well-known firms. So upshot is - you'll probably be fine but if you want to be absolutely sure, take your own. I wish I had! Have a lovely time,

It probably is better to bring your own. Carseats, although legally mandatory, are quite often not used by Italians, who will think nothing of sitting in the front seat with a small child on their knee while driving.

Kid you not.

You need to ask the car hire firm in advance. I imagine with someone like Avis or Hertz you'd probably be OK. But it might be worth your while bringing your own for peace of mind.

We took our own - if you travel with BA etc then you get allocated a car seat and buggy for each child. When we investigated flying to Rome with BA v Easyjet in the end it didnt come down to much when you added all the baggage/food on.

Thanks a lot to all of you. Last time we took our own (with just ds1 at the time) and it got lost in transit so we ended up getting a minibus trip to near our destination.

I guess we need to decide whether to spend the extra money on a global car hire company with better chance of having decent seats, or on leaving the car at the airport and paying for that so we can take our own. If we fly, we usually get the train to the airport without too much luggage. But maybe we need to make an exception this time.
Thanks again.