i will be leaving sienna to florence by bus on a sunday. I cant find bus schedules. RS says the corse rapide leaves often to florence but i heard bus service is reduced on sunday, how early and often are departures.
Larry: are you out there? or Tim? I think it was Larry who, in the last couple of days, pulled the Sunday Siena to Florence corse rapide bus schedules and noticed a problem with Sunday bus service?
For timetables, go here. If I'm reading the timetables correctly, it looks like Corse Rapide express buses depart Siena on Sundays at 14:10, 17:40, 17:50, 18:10, and 19:10.
Again, if I'm reading the timetables correctly, buses start early in the morning and run more frequently on the slower service via Poggibonsi and Colle Val d'Elsa.
steve,
Don't forget that the regular bus only takes about 20 minutes more than the rapide.
the time tables are to small to read i am hoping to leave sienna closer to 0900 than 1400, thanks for your help but it sounds like i need larry
Tim's right that the earliest Sunday express bus departs at 14:10. There are earlier buses on the local schedule (see right side of linked schedule - any column with H or G at the top - use + zoom button above word Siena to increase size). They're scheduled for 1 hour 35 min (only 20 minutes slower than the express). There's nothing at 9:00, but there is an 8:10 arriving 9:45 and a 9:40 arriving 11:15.
Steve: Tim and Frank already found the thing I was asking Larry for. Italian bus schedules are a specialty item, in the realm of Advanced Helpline Subjects. Tim and Frank are part of our ace staff of rail & bus specialists. Tim's call sign is Trenitalia Tim and Frank's is Firenze Frank--you're in good hands with them. And Henry sounds like he knows a few things about Italian bus schedules, too.
I'm late but I'm here. Tim and Frank both have the same info I have. As mentioned above, It's in .pdf so you can enlarge it on your screen. Look above on your menu bar, you see that the schedule comes up at 76% or something similar. Open the window and select 150%. The schedule will enlarge.
As a side note, I haven't yet resolved the Italian codes for the buses. On this schedule, F=Weekdays and L-V=Monday-Friday. To us, this means the same. I don't know the difference between the two for the Italian schedule. G=Daily but I'm not sure if "Daily" includes Sunday since H=Sunday/Festiva. So much for my difficulties.
To repeat from above, for the Corse Rapide from Siena to Florence, there does not appear to be any bus on Sunday until 14:10 if G includes Sunday. The first H=Sunday/Festiva bus is at 17:40. However, the good news is that you can take the regular bus that stops at Colle Val D'Elsa and Poggibonsi on the way to Florence. As mentioned by Henry, this bus takes 20 minutes longer but there are 3-4 buses listed under the letter H by 10:40am on the schedule.
Or, you can take the train. There are four Trenitalia trains departing Siena between 6:27 and 8:47 on a Sunday. Then, Trenitalia has a bus run from the train station departing at 9:40am. It's not the same as the SITA bus.
F is translated as weekdays but really stands for feriale, which means working day (always Monday through Saturday in Italy).
Now do you see why we call him Firenze Frank! Maybe we'll change his call sign to Feriale (no not Feral) Frank?
you guys crack me up!
In all honesty, I feel like I know the whole bunch of you in this thread, as you have all helped me immensely with the planning of my first trip to bella Italia, still 12 months away!
Keep up the great work, we all appreciate it!
Kathleen: That's a nice thing for you to say, we always appreciate hearing nice words like that!