Travelling to Italy May 2023. Need advice on train travel from Pisa to Genoa (staying 3 nights) then Genoa to Milan. Do we need to book this before the trip or can we do it day of at train station? Which train lines do we look for?
Posted by
Martinez, CA, USA
1506 posts
We were recently in Genoa among other towns. It’s not necessary to book the tickets in advance but I booked all our tickets online before we left home. We had the tickets on our phones and I also printed paper copies just as a backup. It saved time at the stations and we only had to think about finding the platform.
Posted by
Italy
3812 posts
You mean which railway company with "line to look for"? Trenitalia is the only company running trains from Pisa to Genoa. From Genoa to Milan you can choose between Trenitalia.com and Italotreno.it
Go on trenitalia.com/en.htm , put your day of travel in May and pick an hour of departure from the drop-down menu. From: "Pisa Aeroporto" to the station in Genova close to your hotel. Direct trains from Pisa Centrale stop at both Genova's main stations.
On the results page there is a "sort by" menu. You can pick price or journey time or departure time. If you Get tickets on the day of travel, you will always pay the top BASE fare. All the other fares are discounted and Trenitalia doesn't give discounts for trains running on the same day.
The problem with discounted train tickets is that you can not have any refund if you are even 1 minute late. If you are early, you must pay to take an earlier train. Quite obviously nobody would buy a Base ticket in advance.
More or less Italotreno's fares work the same way, last minute purchases come at a cost. But once published the walk-up fares do not increase.