I rented a car from Hertz in Florence in late June for 10 days returning it in Rome. I had a fantastic experience. As other have mentioned there was a line with about 10 other people in front of me at check in. After spending 13 hours on an international flight this was not what I was looking for. After standing in line for about 10 minutes, not a single person had finished checking in. One of the agents then became free and asked if there were any #1 gold members. I was the only one and she saved me from what would have been a 2 hour wait. I reserved a CDMR car. Dispite this I was asked if I preferred an automatic or manual (I wanted the manual) and was given an Alpha Rameo Giulietta 1.6l Diesel. I have a Visa signature credit card which is one of the few that provides coverage in Italy so I did not take the CDW. Because of this the agent informed me of a €15,000 excess that'd I would be responsible for if I damaged the car. I said I was fine with that and she continued processing the transaction. There was no hard sell and I was expecting a battle based on what some people write here. It was a great trip. The car only had 900km on it and we returned it 10 days latter with no damage. I would certainly use Hertz in Italy again.