I will be traveling to Italy this July, while there I will be visiting milan, bologna, florence, venice and rome, is it cheaper to buy a train pass now or wait till i get there a worry about transportation then?
Posted by
Ottawa, Ontario,, Canada
521 posts
Hi Sarah,
Most rail passes can only be purchased prior to departing for Europe as they are not available to Europeans for purchase.
That being said, Italy is very inexpensive to travel by train, and it is usually more expensive to travel with a rail pass. You can price out the cost of your individual journeys on the Italian Rail website, and compare it to the cost of a rail pass. I think you will find that the individual tickets will be far less expensive for you.
Remember too that even if you have a rail pass, you will still need to pay a reservation fee of about $30 US to travel on the Eurostar Italia or Alta Velocita (the two high-speed) trains. When you price out the cost of point-to-point tickets, the fare will include this reservation fee. The website will indicate which type of train you are booking with ES and AV being the two abbreviations for the high-speed trains.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Sarah, just a note that most countries charge some kind of extra fee on their premium trains for Eurail pass holders. Sometimes its called a supplemental fee and sometimes its called a reservation fee. Regardless, it's an extra cost that you weren't expecting.
It's somewhat worse in Italy as the reservation fee for riding the Eurostars is 15E-20E ($21-$28). The fee is much less on the lower train class called ICPlus. There is no fee on the Regionale trains. The ES-AV trains are the most expensive (and also the fastest and nicest).
Eurostars don't run everywhere in Italy but I've give you a guess where they do run. Yep. Every one of the locations that you listed above.
Point-to-point tickets are less expensive in Italy. You don't need a railpass. For some of your runs, Eurail pass fee equals have the P2P train fare and the P2P train fare includes the seat reservation.
Trains are very frequent. Except for feeling quite strange in a train station, just step up and buy your tickets. The biggest hint is to know the dates and times when you will be traveling. Write them down. If you need to give your list to a ticket agent, he can read what you want from your list. Or, in most city train stations, there are automatic ticket machines. They will prompt you in English, make your seat reservation for you and accept your American credit card.
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32212 posts
Sarah,
As the others have said, it's often less expensive just to buy P-P tickets in Italy, as the trains are fairly reasonably priced.
You might want to research each of your rail journeys using either the Trenitalia or bahn.de websites, so that you have some idea on the timing, and whether reservations will be required. That may give you some idea of the costs.
You could also try entering each of your rail trips into This site, which will suggest the best combination of Pass or P-P tickets. As the others have said, you won't be able to purchase a Rail Pass in Europe.
I would also suggest downloading the free PDF Rail Guide from this site. Click This Link for all the details.
Happy travels!
Posted by
Toronto, Canada
28 posts
I just returned from a trip to Rome/Venice and it's true that a pass really isn't worthwhile if you're not going to be in Italy for more than a few weeks. For all the trains we took we needed to book reservations with additional fees. Granted these reservation fees are fairly cheap if you have a pass (5-10Euros mostly), but if you're only hopping from one large city to the next, it may be more worthwhile to just buy the tickets individually and reserve each train as you go. That said, my one way 1st class ticket from Rome to Venice was $104Euros, so not as cheap as I thought.
Subway and local transit in Rome I thought was very efficient and economical. Venice, obviously, not so much since it's a 'walking' city.
Best of luck!
Posted by
Tucson
137 posts
You don't need to book your tickets ahead of time. My family of five got back a month ago and we took trains all over the place, usually buying them within an hour or so of leaving. We had no problems with this and it gave us the freedom to leave earlier/later than we had originally planned.
http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=c79686605528a110VgnVCM1000003f16f90aRCRD
Use this link to figure out where you want to go, how long it will take to get there and how much it will cost. Print out the schedule for a few hours before and after your planned trip so you will know what your options are if you are, say, enjoying breakfast and don't want to make a run for it.
It also helped knowing our tentative schedule ahead of time because it helped us catch a "Ravenna" ticket that was supposed to be "Varenna" Oops!!
Lastly, 2nd class was just fine. We had no problems and for the longer routes we had assigned seats.
Enjoy your trip!!