My husband and I are spending 3 weeks, June 14th to July 7th, and traveling to 7 different towns (staying a few nights then traveling to next town) all within the central and south areas of Italy: Rome, Sorrento, Assisi, Florence, Portovenere, Lucca, Tuscany farmstay, and Rome. Would you recommend booking some train tickets, all train tickets or wait until we get there and need to travel? Appreciate any thoughts/experience you may have.
Posted by
Italy
3812 posts
It depends on the train, there are no reserved seats and no discounts for advance purchases on Regionale trains.
On the other hand, you can save a lot getting high speed and long distance trains tickets in advance. I guess you are using high speed trains between Rome, Naples and Florence.
Farms are usually far from train stations, you may check car rental prices as soon as possible.
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23650 posts
It just depends on the travel service. ALL trains except the Regional trains require a seat reservation that is assigned at time of purchase. The Regional trains are get on and go. No seat available -- stand till one opens at the next stop. Regional trains are the slowest because they make a lot of stops. However, depending on distance they may be only 15, maybe 30 minutes slower than faster and more expensive trains. At this late date you probably have missed most of the discounts available for the faster trains so I would buy the tickets when you need them.
Posted by
2855 posts
Last year when we went to Italy in August I bought all of our train tickets (there were seven of us) a couple nights before we went online and then printed the tickets. It did not save me any money but I knew what time we would go and having tickets ahead of time made everything easier.
Posted by
Gettysburg PA
7277 posts
Get the easy to use apps
Posted by
OP
Clatskanie, Oregon
5 posts
Thank you very much for the helpful advice. It seems we will be using a mix of the slow and fast trains depending on where we are heading and what is available.
Thanks for the tip of renting a car to get to the farm stay -- I have done that. :)
Downloading the app is definite must.
Thank you everyone!
Posted by
Sunnyvale, CA
149 posts
BTW, Portovenere is not connected by rail. You need to take either the bus or ferry in La Spezia.
Posted by
68 posts
We will be in Italy around the same time. I was told it would be best to buy high-speed train tickets in advance. The rest, we will buy when we get their (ie: from Florence to Lucca).