Hi, my boyfriend and I are planning a trip at the end of this month to explore Italy, and I'm sorting out our train travel. I did a phone consultation with Paul at Rick Steves' ETBD and that was incredibly helpful, and now I'm just trying to sort out the details. I'm hoping someone might know the answers to these two (basic?) questions: 1. When I visit the TrenItalia site, it's no problem to find a timetable and pricing for most of my routes (Rome-Venice, Venice-Florence, etc.). But when I plug in Florence to Pisa on 9/23, all trains seem to be unavailable. What's going on? I can't believe every single seat, on every single train, is sold out. 2. I have 3 travel days during my trip and totaling up the cost for individual legs (2nd class) comes out to about US$197. (I don't know the exact price since I can't include Florence-Pisa, but I'm guessing it's around 15 euro.) An Italy Eurail pass for 3 days travel, 2nd class, is $223. Is there any advantage/reason to spend the extra money for the pass vs just paying for each leg individually? thank you--
Eric
Posted by
Pa and Italy
4152 posts
1) those are all regional trains which can only be bought online a week in advance. You can see the schedules and prices by entering a date for later this week. 2)There is no advantage and you still have to pay the 10 euros seat reservation fee with the pass. This fee is included with the trenitalia tickets. Don't buy a pass buy point to point tickets. You might be able to get the mini fares on your trips from Rome-Venice and Venice Florence. Pick the train you want to take and click the continue button. IF the mini fare is available it will show up. Don't buy this fare unless you are sure of your travel dates as they offer no refunds or changes. Donna
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23278 posts
Without checking the schedule myself, my first guess is that all trains between Florence and Pisa are Regional trains. Since Regional trains do not have reservations or discounts, you cannot buy the tickets on-line. You have no need to do so. For your price comparison, did you include the seat reservation fee for any train except the Regional? Did you include the Mini fare prices? There is no advantage to a rail pass. Still have to make reservations.
Posted by
Seattle, WA, USA
7737 posts
1. You're right. They're not sold out. Those trains are all Regionale trains which don't post their fares more than 7 days in advance. To find out how much it will be and when the trains run, type in a date that's the same day of the week you'll be traveling, or 9/9 in this case, and then ta-da! You'll see the price. 2. There's no advantage to doing the pass. Quite the opposite - you often have to pay an additional reservation fee, I believe.
Posted by
OP
Hollywood, California, USA
8 posts
Donna, Frank and Michael-- THANKS! I didn't even know about the regional trains but that makes perfect sense, and I changed the date to tomorrow to be able to price the fare. Definitely looks like buying point-to-point tickets is going to make much more sense for me. Grazie! :-)