Trains/Reservations/Car Rental – Help

We never drive so will let someone else comment on your rental plans. As for the trains -- Italy rail is very reasonable and rarely if ever fills up. The only advantage to purchasing advance tickets is the available discounts. Look on the trenitalia.com site and see if the discount are worth it. Changing trains is a way of life for most everyone using trains. For some reason many American are hung up on the idea that a train has to be direct. The trenitalia site will show the changes and length of time for the total trip. Schedules are posted about 90 in advance so if you want to see the schedule for your trip just choice the same day of the week sometime in the next month or so. There will be little changes with the Sept schedules are posted. We find train travel to be very relaxing even with changes and sometimes slower but so what. With train it is city center to city center, no parking hassles, and no delay photo traffic tickets, etc.

You need to get to know the trenitalia web site. 1. Go to http://www.trenitalia.com/ 2. In the upper right corner you will see a british flag. Click on that flag, and it changes the web site to english language. Save this as a favorite, or you'll have to do this each time you go to the site. 3. When you look at trains more than 7 days out most of the regional trains will show NA in the price column. They only publish prices on the cheaper regional trains 7 days in advance. To get the full picture, if you're traveling on a tuesday, choose a tuesday within a week. As you get closer to the actual date then check the schedule for seasonal changes. CT to Venice is a schlep. When you look at your schedule, think about dropping Venice and saving it for the next trip. Give yourself more time in Rome, Florence, visit Lucca....

Hey Ted,
When you say the trip from Venice to the CT is a schlep...what do you mean? So Venice was not in our original itenerary; I added it after several people on the boards suggested that I do so. We are celebrating 25 years of marriage, so I think the advice was given based on Venice being so romantic. My dates for the CT cannot be changed; having said that, if I dropped Venice what would you put in place of that location from Milan (2 nights)? Thanks, Amy

In reference to the rental car. Where you rent depends on what hilltowns you want to see. There are several on your way down to Siena that are more easily accessible by car. Such as San Gimignano and Volterra. AutoEurope, who is a rental car broker, has locations in La Spezia. They will arrange for a rental with companies such as Avis, Europcar, etc. Another option would be to go from the CT to Florence, see the sites, and spend one night. Then pick up the car at the airport. Do Not rent it downtown or by the train station. You risk getting a ticket for being in a ZTL zone. Then, head on down to Siena. This way you are not backtracking. For me, I would then return the car at the train station in Orvieto and then take the train (1 hr) into Rome. Orvieto is a very lovely, quaint hilltown that is worth a day, or an overnight stay. This past fall, we stayed 10km outside of Siena. If you need B&B suggestions, PM me. I also suggest getting a GPS and a good Michelin road map.

My understanding of NA in the price window of Trenitalia is that advance purchase of the ticket on the web site is not available. Since this is a ticket for regional train that never sells out, there is no reason to sell advance tickets. You need an open ticket that can be validated in the yellow boxes so you buy when you get to the station. Cannot validate a paper ticket from the internet. Has nothing to do with pricing seven days out.

Amy:
We did a really similar itinerary last year so I hope I can help. We stayed longer in Venice but if 2 nights is what you have, it's OK! CT is a bit of a trek, but you will see a lot of scenery. You can leave Venice at 10:27 and arrive Vernazza (for example) at 15:47, taking a train first to Florence, then to Sarzana, and finally into Vernazza, or whichever little town you plan to stay in. Two trains are regionales, so you need to jockey for seats. Be ready to board as soon as you can. CT to Siena is more arduous. I'd rent my car in La Spezia if I had it to do over. Otherwise you are faced with 4 trains to get to Siena. We ended up standing up on 2 of them, for over 2 hours. Yuck!

Thanks to everyone so far for your responses to my post. So my decisions right now are the following:
Do we keep Venice in our itenerary? Is it worth the trek from Milan to Venice then Venice to the CT? Do we rent a car in La Spezia and drive to Siena for our five nights in the Tuscany area, or do we train from CT to Siena and rent a car in Siena? Other consideration is we may decide to go to Florence after the CT for one night then head to Siena for 4 nights.

Amy, I envy your connection to Milan. We're flying to Milan in June from LAX and we have a 7 hour layover at Heathrow. That being said, it looks like you're got 10 hours of flying and a 4 hour layover at JFK. You land in Milan at 8 am, but you've been traveling for 14 hours. Get your bags, get through customs, catch the Malpensa shuttle to the main Milan Train station....You're going to get there about 10:30 am local time, I think. Now you've got a 2.5 or 3.5 hour train ride to Venice. You get to Venice about 14:10 or 14:55. Now, get to your hotel, check in, and....collapse in Exhaustion. You're visiting Venice....exhausted. You will have Sept 11 in Venice, then you depart for CT. You've got a 5.5 to 6 hour schlep to CT from Venice. That day is lost. So, what I'm saying is you are spending an extra 5 hours on trains to visit Venice for one day. Not worth it, IMHO. The Milan cathedral is listed as one of the 10 places to see in 2011 on the NY times travel site. It was just renovated. La Scala is pretty cool, I hear. I think you should stay in Milan for the 10th and 11th, then go down and enjoy CT for three days, then proceed with your itinerary. Arrive on the 10th, dump your bags at the hotel, take a quick shower and walk around until you're exhausted, then crash. The next day you'll feel semi-normal, then when you get to CT you'll be rested. If you had flown into Venice that would be a different story, but you flew into Milan. My GF would never allow me to set up the itinerary with the trip to Venice. "This is my vacation" she would say. And she is right. Just my two cents.

....also, you could leave Milan after a day and stop for a night somewhere along the Milan-Genova-CT route. Then on the day when you're headed to CT you've got a short trip and more time to enjoy CT.

I think Ted knows what he"s talking about. Like he said and what we did last Sep., it would be different if you were flying into Venice. We flew into venice and spent 3 days then took train to CT. We bought all our tickets as we went to each place. No problems at all. And in fact, when we went from Venice to the CT, we went through Milan and came down the coast through Genova. Even though we changed trains in Milan, we did not visit. You just can't do it all in one trip

Amy,
Don't forget that driving into most city centers or tourist areas come at a premium. When we stayed in Florence the hotel registered our car, so we didn't have to pay a fine to drive into the restricted area. Don't know how your going to work this out if you are driving into multiple cities. As far as the train, we just buy the tickets as we go along and we never make any reservations. We have never had a problem doing this and it's less stressful for us. This last trip we made to Venice, Florence, Siena and Pisa we had a very flexible itinerary (we actually winged it), with just a few set reservations for certain museums. My wife felt uneasy at first, but we really enjoyed ourselves. I understand this is not for everyone, just a thought or another way to do it. HAVE FUN!!!

Thanks guys...I am going to look into changing our flight into Venice. I don't want to give up such a special part of our trip to italy. Celebrating 25years of marriage..just don't want to sacrifice. Miguel...thanks for having my back...we will be taking a train into Florence. I read about the restricted parking.

Especially since it's your anniversary, I would make Venice the highest priority and would bump it to 3 nights so you have two full uninterrupted days. It's unbelievably romantic. I would peel days away from CT/Siena/Tuscany and even consider dropping CT before dropping Venice. That's based on my experience. We've been to Venice twice already and go back again next month. There's no other place like it on the planet. The same can't really be said of the CT, which are charming, but overhyped, imho.

I have driven in Italy and I don't do it anymore. I just got back from two weeks in Northern Italy. All train travel. Booked all tickets as we went. For example, when we got into Verona for two days on the train...before departing the train station....we purchased our tickets for our next town...Lucca. When we arrived in Lucca for three days...before we left the station we bought our tickets for our next town....and so on. Worked great...no problems at all.

Amy, before you rent a car and drive in Siena make sure you know what a ZTL is, and where they are located, or you may have hundreds of dollars in fines arriving on your door in a year or so. Basically the whole inner city is "off limits" to cars. No matter what your hotel says, be very careful. Learn how to read the signs, and where they will are located. Autoeurope and Gemu are awsome broker/vendors to rent your car from. Rent your car here, thru one of them. Go to the AE web site and fiddle with pick up and drop off locations. Sometimes there can be quite a difference in cost. Bring your own GPS, a small Michelin map of Italy, your drivers license, and a International Drivers Permit (that you get at your local AAA office.)

Steve - Awesome advice. Thank you! We are renting a room outside of Siena in an Agriturismo. We plan to walk into town or ride bikes into Siena. The car is really for driving to the Hilltowns over the five days we will be in Tuscany. I have been getting great advice on the car rental portion of our trip and I find it invaluable! Karren,
I have one question back - Is there a specific reason that you no longer drive in Italy, or is it just a hassle and since you have already done it in the past you just enjoy training everywhere? Thanks again! Amy

Hello All! Great news - I was able to adjust our itenerary to make the trek up to Venice worth it! We will now be in Venice three nights, Cinque Terre 3 nights, Tuscany 4 nights ending in Rome with 3 nights. We will be renting our car in La Spezia and driving to Siena from the CT. We will have the car for 3 days then we will drop it off before heading to Florence for our last day in the Tuscany area. Thanks again for all the great advice. This will make our 25 year anniversary even more special. Amy and Doug

Amy, Congrats on your anniversary. My husband and I are also traveling Italy Sept10-23 celebrating our 20th. We are traveling with another couple. We fly into Rome and stay 3 nights, down to Sorrento for 4 nights, looking at renting a car for here. (there is so much to see in Southern Italy. Sorrento, Pompeii, Naples, Isle of Capri (Blue Grotto), Alfami Coast and driving up Tuscany to Florence to turn in car Florence 3 nights Venice for 2 nights Rome for last day before heading home. Hope you have a fantastic trip. Lana

Amy Congrats on reconfiguring your flights! Now there is a good flow to your trip and no backtracking! Bobbie

Congrats. September must be the month to celebrate wedding anniversaries in Italy! We'll also be celebrating our 25th during our Sept trip to Lake Como, CT, Tuscany, and Venice as well. Maybe we'll cross travel paths.

Happy Anniversary to all! Yes, it would be fun to try to meet up somewhere and have a glass of wine to celebrate Marriage!