Is it necessary to book trains ahead of time at the end of June? I was looking at some routes on italiatren and some say "sold out".
We will be relying on trains for all of our travel in Italy. During COVID times, we are trying to make everything (hotel, planes) fully refundable.
Thanks for any thoughts!
List all the routes and the dates here and we will sort it out for you. From experience it does not sound accurate that all the trains are sold out that you are searching for late June. I usually use trenitalia.com (they own on operate the trains not italiarail) or italotren.com only for high speed long distance city to city train routes e.g Rome to Florence.
Re-explore your dates on Trenitalia's website, or Italo (fast trains between larger cities only)
https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html
https://www.italotreno.it/en
Where you are you trying to go, and on which dates?
There is a schedule reload around June 10th but at a quick glance, I'm seeing lots of trains loaded and showing tickets on both sites from, say, Roma Termini to Firenze SM Novella for various end of June dates.
I wouldn't use italiatren; never heard of it.
Editing to add: if you want fully refundable, you won't be purchasing the lowest price advance tickets (when available) anyway so just buy them when you get to Italy, or the next highest price tier advance ticket which allows for refunds.
Thank you - using the correct site now!
We are going Rome to Parma on June 24. Then Parma to Lucca on June 26. Lucca to Rome June 29. I think I figured it out!
We must fly home from Rome - that's why it looks so strange..
FYI - I ended up booking on Rick Steve's website
https://ricksteves.raileurope.com/
It was fast and easy with many ticket options. The confirmation sent me a link to the Rail Europe app, and my trips are on there with tickets ready to scan.
Thanks everyone!
Not sure why you didn’t just use the actual train website rather than a 3rd party that usually charges more
Just make sure that the 0:00 in the time to get all the solutions to populate.
with many ticket options
I hope, especially when going from Rome to Parma, that you are making the all trip with the same railway company. And that they made clear all the T&C regarding the tickets you purchased.
