Train Italia Registration Trouble

The website speaks Italian, not American, English or French.

Most of the way down the list you will find Stati Uniti d'America which is Italian for USA. Use that.

If you were British it would be Regno Unito, Canada is Canada, Korea is Corea (2 variants). etc.

The previous suggestion may work elsewhere but not in Italian.

Thank you. I just learned from watching that that you can't register unless you have an Italian address.

Okay, I booked my train from Florence to Santa Margherita. But now I need to book my trip from Santa Margherita to Venice. But I don't see any options for travel from Santa Margherita to Venice on Train Italia.

There are at least four trains from Santa Maria Ligure to Venezia S. Lucia. You need to spell the station names in Italian (as I have written them) and make sure you have the entire name correct - there is another Santa Margherita in Calabria and the Venezia Mestre station, you don't want either of these.

Venice isn't Venice in Italian. It is Venezia. The station on the Grand Canal is the Santa Lucia. Mestre is industrial and on the mainland. Unless you have a reason to get off there you want Venezia SL. You need to put in the Italian spelling.

If that isn't the problem - you don't say what the exact problem is - two other choices may be that you are trying to buy Regionale train tickets more than 7 days ahead (you can't unless combined with a faster train, and then there are worse terms and conditions than in the station), or that you are looking at current time (at the moment nearly 7pm) in Italy instead of specifying the time you want the train... it defaults to current time.

Thanks everyone for your help. I think I finally worked it out, thanks to your input. Any suggestions for navigating the process now that I've booked my train travel would be greatly appreciated. From what I understand, purchasing the tickets is just one hurdle. The rest is figuring out how early to get to the station and how to figure out boarding passes and extra fees and train changes.

what extra fees?

You're not trying to do this with a rail pass are you?

"figuring out how early to get to the station and how to figure out boarding passes and extra fees and train changes. "

Those things are easy - don't worry.

There is no security or passport control at the train station, so all you need to do is be on your train before it leaves. You want to get to the station about 15 minutes before the train leaves, to allow you time to find your track, then find the car with your seat reservation. You could just get on any car and schlep yourself and your bags through the train to find your seat, but that's obviously not preferred.

If you want to do anything besides just get on the train (such as use the bathroom, buy tickets for other trips, buy food for the journey, etc), allow more time.

There is no "boarding pass" - all you need is the ticket. If it's for a regional train (no reservation), you need to validate ("compost") the ticket before boarding - this prevents the ticket from being reused. If you have a reserved seat, no need to validate, since the ticket can only be used for one train - you just get on board.

As Nigel said, what extra fees? If you've bought tickets (either through the website or at the station), they include all needed fees. The only extra fees come if you're using a railpass (and for Italy, we hope you're not, as it only costs more and adds hassle).

As for train changes: The easiest way to figure these is to use the Bahn website: http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en, following Rick's tutorial: http://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/online-schedules. Find your train route on it, and click the red arrow to show all connections.

About five minutes before you are due to arrive at your station, gather your belongings and move toward the exit (you'll see others doing the same, particularly if it's a major station). Once you're off the train, you just head to the platform with your next train. Sometimes the tracks are all on one level (like Milano Centrale), but more often you have to go down stairs, through a passageway connecting all the platforms, and up stairs to your platform. The passageway usually has monitors showing which trains are leaving from which platforms.

When looking for your train, be sure to look for train number and departure time, NOT destination. Unless you're taking a train to its final destination, you will get confused, and you must also remember the names will be in Italian. There are lots of reports of people going from Venice to Florence looking for the train to Florence and not finding it, since 1) they should be looking for Firenze, and 2) those trains terminate in Roma or Napoli so that's what the main listing will be; Firenze will only be listed in small print as an intermediate destination.

It all sounds harder than it really is. Once you've done it, even one time, you'll see it's easy.

Here's Rick's video on rail basics (although shot in the Netherlands and Germany, the principles are the same for Italy): http://tinyurl.com/ac82c92

And here's a video from an Italian (in fluent English), showing specifics in Italy: http://tinyurl.com/mvjjbyh

Gotcha. Thank you! I don't know what I'd do without everyone's help here!

By now you should have received e-tickets from Trenitalia. It's a good idea to print them out but don't delete them from your email in case you have to access them again (if you misplace the paper ticket).