We are heading to Italy in December and we would like to stop at a town on our way from Rome to Florence and then possibly in Bologna between Florence and Venice. How easy is it to stop if you have a ticket from one major city to another? Do you have to purchase a different ticket if you want to make a stop? Any suggestions for a stop on the way to Florence from Rome?
Thanks in advance for the help!
Sara, a couple of basics for Italian trains. First, when you buy a ticket from one city to another and there is a train change along the way, you will receive one ticket for each train that you are on. Second, there are different types of train categories in the Italian train system. If you ride on the Regionale (R) categories, which is the lowest category, you will receive an open ticket good for 60 days. No date, no time and no seat assignment. The ticket will have the departure and arrival locations on the ticket along with the class (1st or 2nd) and the number of passengers. You can take any R train making that particular run anytime during the 60 days. Also, you can get off the train anywhere along the way, stay for as long as you want and get back on a later train making the same journey. An example of this type of ticket is from Florence to La Spezia. If you have a R ticket, you can get off at Pisa, visit the leaning tower, return to the train station hours later and hop back on a later train to La Spezia. Reservations or seat assignments are not permitted on the R trains.
The next category up is the intercity (IC) and ICPlus trains. These are much like the R trains except that you can pay about 3 Euro for a guaranteed seat assignment.
Next up are the high-speed trains. These are the Italian Eurostar (ES), Alta Velocita (AV), Cisalpino (CIS), EuroCity (EC) and night trains. These trains will have the date, time, train number and seat assignments on the ticket. No fooling around here. If you get off one of these trains midway in transit and your train departs, the remainder of your ticket is toast. (See my next message)
Now that you have some basics, here's some more info. About 55 trains a day run between Rome and Florence. Most are Italian Eurostars and most runs are non-stops. Thus, if you want to get off somewhere on the run (i.e. Chiusi or Orvieto), you either buy a ticket from Rome to Florence on an R train (which costs about half as much as the Eurostar but the trip takes 90 minutes longer) or you buy multiple tickets. If your multiple tickets are all R trains, you can get off and back on later trains as you wish. If any are on Eurostar-type trains, you will have firm dates and times and you will have to be more cautious.
Same thing with your trip from Florence and Venice. The Eurostars will stop in Bologna as well as Padua along the way. If you want to get off at Bologna, you will need two tickets. It is likely that each leg (Florence/Bologna and Bologna/Venice) will be on high-speed Italian Eurostars so watch your times on the tickets carefully so that you don't extend your stay beyond the time when your next train departs.
The last suggestion is to learn the train schedules from www.trentialia.com. You can then easily tell the agent which trains and times you want when you purchase.
THANK YOU!! One last question? If we didn't want to be as concerned with time when we stop at Bologna, could we do R trains between Florence and Venice?
Actually, most trains between Florence and Bologna are high-speed Eurostars with many being non-stops. It's just a 1.0hr. ride.
What you could do is buy the Eurostar ticket to Bologna. From Bologna, there are some R train runs to Venice that take about 30-40min longer. You can either buy the R train ticket from Bologna to Venice or you can buy a second Eurostar ticket with a firm departure time. Your choice here.
Sara,
An addition to the basics. Once you stamp a ticket (valadate) for a regional train the clock starts running. From the trenitalia website:
Tickets for journeys on regional trains with departure and destination stations in different regions are valid for 6 hours from stamping.
Also I believe all ICPlus trains are reservation only.
If you are traveling with a pass, can you get on and off the trains?
I'm not sure about hopping onto a Eurostar with a railpass in Italy. There's a 15Euro seat reservation fee that needs to be paid. Perhaps you can immediately contact the conductor. Usually, you do this in advance of getting on the train.
This is excellent information! Thank you!
