Renting a scooter in Florence

Where to get a motorino (moped or scooter) in Florence

Motorino (scooter) rentals
Alinari
Via San Zanobi 38r
tel. +39-055-280-500 www.alinarirental.com

Florence by Bike
Via San Zanobi, 120–122R
tel. +39-055-488-992
www.florencebybike.it

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TOURS FROM OUR TRUSTED PARTNERS that include Florence

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Intrepid Travel 2011 Italy trips
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MotoriniThere are two main central shops (neighbors, actually) where you can rent a motorino (motor scooter) in Florence, both just northeast of the leather market and train station–area hotels.

Alinari is the cheaper of the two:

On smart scootering

Useful Italian
scooter - motorino or scooter
rental - noleggio
two hours - due ore
one day - un giorno
helmet - casco
Full story
Everyone will tell you never to rent a scooter in Italy. They say motorini are too dangerous, too unstable, too unpredictable, and the surrounding traffic is too insane.

They say you'll inevitably get into an accident and return home with, if you're lucky, an ugly road rash from skidding through gravel in your shorts at 30mph (and, if you're unlucky, a cracked skull).

Poppycock. I rent scooters in Italy all the time and the worst injury I've ever suffered was a bent-back thumbnail once when I misjudged flicking the start button. The real issue is that people don't treat scooters with respect. They're just too cute: like baby motorcycles, or bikes pretending to be grown-ups with an engine and everything. Aww. Plus, they're just so much darn fun!

As a result, many people drive around, without a helmet, at high speeds. They rubberneck the sights, chat with their companion behind them, or sit there texting with one hand and steering with the other. That's just dumb. Remember: a scooter is essentially an undersized, underpowered, under-stabilized motorcycle.

It's not so much that scooters are dangerous as it is tourists are stupid (not people: tourists. People who are perfectly sane, rational, and responsible at home often transform into giddy idiots after just a few hours on an exciting, exotic, sun-drenched vacation).

Scooters also fool you into thinking you can join the cars racing all around as if an equal. You're not equal. You are perched precariously atop a tiny scrap of metal and plastic with wheels. The drivers of the cars are cocooned in a protective metal shell padded by airbags and such. If you get hit by a car, you'll be road kill; they'll probably just think they hit a bad pothole.

Yes, scooters are dangerous—though not much more so than walking—and yes the traffic in Italy is atrocious, doubling the danger, so take precautions:

In other words: do no, under any circumstances, drive like the locals, who are used to the traffic rules and have been riding a motorino since the age of 14.

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This material was last updated January 2011. All information was accurate at the time.

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