We will be in Italy for a month. I have used Rick's book and know it is better to buy point to point tickets. Is there s printed book that has all the schedules from station to station? I don't want to have to take my laptop. I am having a hard time find trains from one town to another especially the small towns.
Posted by
Huntsville, AL, USA
8141 posts
Train schedules in Italy change often, and printed train schedules don't work well when so many changes are made. You can go online on trentalia.com and see what towns have train service. Just loosely map your plans out ahead of time. Most hotels have computers in their lobby, and you can use their computer to firm up your plans. Seldom are any trains sold out in Italy except around Christmas. You can always get a seat. If you want to tour a region, like Tuscany outside Florence, just rent a car to get from small hill town to hill town.
Posted by
Toledo, Ohio, US
11613 posts
Robbie, once you are in Italy, you can use the self-service ticket kiosks to find train schedules (without buying the ticket, just don't choose a particular train) - I do this when I arrive in a city. There are also printed schedules posted, but they may be confusing (smaller towns may have schedules that change throughout the week, on weekends, at specific times of the month or season, all listed). With the kiosk, you enter the day and destination and only those trains will show. You can also look up the Trenitalia schedules from your hotel, as suggested.
Posted by
San Jose, CA
1994 posts
I don't travel with a computer (and find the European keyboards on hotel computers a little crazy making). I find it really helpful to print schedules for my likely travel days a few days before leaving on a trip. That helps with on-the-ground planning while I'm traveling, although I still check locally to ensure nothing changed when there aren't frequent trains scheduled. The output of the deutsche bahn website copies as an MS Word table, which means you can easily manipulate it, eliminating unnecessary columns, changing type size and line/column spacing, etc... thereby minimizing the amount of paper you're carrying. For hard-to-find connections to small towns, I've had good luck e-mailing local tourism offices (although sometimes a few tries are needed) or local hotels. For some small towns, you may need to rely on buses, and they are local bus systems (no Grayhound-like system I've found). I've also had luck posting specific questions on boards such as this.