i bought tickets from la spezia to firenze and firenze to perugia for jun 8. i gave the guy at the ticket counter the time, train#, etc. the tickets he gave me were generic with no train#, time. tickets are valid jun 1 - jul 31. he said this was a regional train and seats are free-for-all. thanks for any info.
Posted by
DC
209 posts
That's correct for the regional trains. You need to find one of the yellow boxes and stick your ticket in there just before you board the train. This prints the date/time on your ticket and validates it!
If you don't validate it, you may get a fine for having a blank ticket when the dude/lady on the train comes around to check your ticket.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Surprise!. You have open tickets because all of your trains are Regionale (R) trains. These are the local trains that stop at every stop. Only the R trains (and maybe the disappearing IC trains) have this feature. All of the higher-class trains require seat reservations.
Your open tickets are good for 60 days. You can see this 60-day period on the tickets. You can take ANY R train making this route for the next 60 days. Once you validate them at the little yellow box, you must complete the journey in 6.0hrs. No seat reservations are permitted on the R trains. Also, you can hop off and Pisa at hop back on a later R train to Florence without penalty if you wish. You can't do this on any higher-class train.
YOU DID AN EXCELLENT JOB IN HAVING ALL OF YOUR INFORMATION IN ADVANCE. GOLD STAR FOR OLIVIA. If any of your train runs were on ICPlus, Eurostar or other higher-class trains, this information would have been needed. What you discovered is that many, many runs in Italy are local or rural. No faster limited-stop trains on these runs. Just the dependable R train. We've been on both the trains you describe above. Just great. You'll love it. On the Florence to Perugia train, you may see Foligno on the engine. Perugia, is just a stop on the run as is Assisi if you stay on for another two stops.
Posted by
OP
Margate, FL, USA
204 posts
thanks, that eases my mind. i hope the trains are air-conditioned and no-smoking. and have available seats, so we don't have to scramble with our bags.
Posted by
St Louis
411 posts
The trains are non smoking, but ac on the regionale traiss is kind of hit or miss. There is no food or beverage service on those trains either so you may want to bring a sandwich and a bottle of water.
Posted by
Frisco, TX, USA
13 posts
Where do you get the schedule/timetable for these R trains? I have been on trenitalia's website to find trips from Rome to Siena on a Monday morning and then from Siena to Pisa to Florence on that Wednesday.
I always get "no response". They only train I can find that makes these journeys is on the Eurorail site.
Can anyone offer a suggestion as to what I'm doing wrong? Thanks, and please reply privately so I don't highjack Olivia's thread. :)
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Lisa, you are bumping up against a serious quirk with Trenitalia. They update their schedules twice yearly. The next update should be about 6/13. At this time, you can't see much beyond that date. If you put in 6/11, you will see everything. Don't worry. When the schedules are updated, most everything will be the same. The eggheads at Trenitalia just don't understand how much frustration they cause travelers.