Traveling to Italy in early October. We will be using train service between cities and several of these routes such as Verenna to Verona via Milan or Venice to Vernazza via Florence, require transferring trains. Hearing that the trains aren't known for being terribly on time, does it make sense to buy the connecting tickets? If a train delay causes you to miss your connection are the tickets good on later trains? There seem to be a large number of trains on these routes, do they sell out?
Posted by
Gettysburg PA
6991 posts
The regional leg can’t sell out-there are no seat reservations
Price is always the same
If you miss the Regional booked you can just take the next in same route
Posted by
San Diego, California, USA
1026 posts
Hello Brian, and welcome to the forum!
Fast trains between big cities and these come with assigned seats on a specific train and tickets can be purchased early at a (sometimes sizable) discount but come with restrictions. The earlier you buy the cheaper the tickets but you're trading economy for flexibility. If you buy the cheapest tickets and miss your train you are out of luck, but if you are generally sure of your schedule the savings are enough that most people decided to buy earlier if they can. Generally all the options for discounts are good deals - read the fine print and as long as you qualify it applies - except for senior discounts on Trenitalia which you need their special card to access and is notoriously difficult to get in the states. Tickets for fast trains are generally available two months ahead.
Regionale or local trains can't sell out, have one class and one price all the time.
If Trenitalia is responsible for you missing a train because of a connection it is their responsibility to rebook you for the next leg.
Trenitalia website: https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html
.Italo is a private company that operates only fast trains: https://www.italotreno.com/en
If you are mixing local trains and fast trains on your journey legs Trenitalia handles everything on the same ticket.
Both companies have apps which I recommend getting and using.
Many people report having an easier experience in English on the .Italo site versus Trenitalia where you generally need to use the Italian names for places - Roma, Firenze, Venezia etc. Get used to using 24 hour "military" time when dealing with trains but it's used less in Italy outside of trains.
The man in seat 61 is a really good basic primer on European train travel: https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-italy.htm
Have a great trip,
=Tod
Posted by
OP
Naperville, IL, USA
2 posts
Thank you both for the information....very helpful