Transportation in Italy

Posted by marrad1 on 05/19/14 01:41 AM

Myself and three other college students are studying abroad in Tuscania during the month of July. We are planning to travel to various cities on our weekends off. The definites are Venice, Cinque Terre, Florence, and Rome. If we can only go to one or two more cities, what would you recommend? We are also struggling to know the best way to travel in between these cities. Should we make reservations/buy tickets before we get there? If busses are cheapest, we would like to take busses, but we can't find information about which cities we can get to by bus from Tuscania. We are also looking at trains. Specifically, in one long weekend (from early Friday morning to Monday night), we are trying to go to Venice, Cinque Terre, and Florence. What would be the best option for travelling between these cities? I was thinking the most sensible order would probably be going from Tuscania to Venice, from Venice to Cinque Terre, and then from Cinque Terre to Florence, but I could be wrong. Will we feel too rushed if we only spend one night in each place? Unfortunately we don't have time for more than that.

Thank you so much for your help!
Aalina

Posted by Laurel

Forest Grove, OR

05/19/14 03:50 AM

11852 posts

Aalina,
Tuscania does not have a train station, so your starting point to any trip is going to be a bus to Viterbo or another nearby city with train connections. Once you get to Tuscania the locals can advise you on buses that will get you to trains. Trains are going to be more efficient than buses for most of your travels.

That said. you may do well to set your expectations to one city/location per weekend. Getting to Venice, Florence and the Cinque Terre in one four-day weekend will leave you with only memories of trains and buses. Consider the following:

Leave on FRIDAY - Get to Viterbo by bus; Connect to the 09:55 train to Rome; Connect to the 12:50 train to Venice; arrive Venice at 16:35. That's a whole day traveling. Even if you only spend one day in Venice - on Saturday - you would be hard pressed to fit in the Cinque Terre and Florence the same weekend. It will take another 6-7 hours to go from Venice to the CT and a half day to go from the CT to Florence.

Why not go to Venice one weekend, Florence another, and the Cinque Terre a third? Your long weekend -- Fri-Mon -- would be great for Venice. You can go to Rome on day trips as it is an easy hop from Viterbo by train.

You can research train routes and prices at the Trenitalia website.

Posted by Roberto da Firenze ⚜

San Francisco Bay Area (USA)

05/19/14 04:11 AM

16240 posts

You can't visit Venice, Cinque Terre and Florence in one weekend. Each of those locations need at least 2 night stays.
There are no trains in Tuscania. To reach the main lines you need a CO.TRA.L bus to go to Orte (via Viterbo) on the Rome-Florence line (not on the high speed line though) or to Montalto di Castro on the Tyrrhenian line. The latter would be your best bet when you go to the Cinque Terre (via train)
For Florence, Venice or Rome, you would go to Viterbo first by bus, then train.
CO.TRA.L. Bus schedules are below.
http://www.cotralspa.it/PDF_Orari_Comune/Tuscania.pdf
Your priority should be to see Rome first, since it's closer. Florence second. Venice is quite a distance considering bus plus trains. If you want to see it, go there on the long weekend.
Train schedules are below.
www.trenitalia.com

Posted by jpkand

05/19/14 02:49 PM

37 posts

Taking for granted the caveats above I will just try to answer your question as you originally posed it. That order sounds sensible to me as well (we saw a lot of people in the CT who were either going to or coming from Venice), and as a result I'd consider cities that are roughly on the route of travel to recommend. My two favorite places to visit on our trip to Tuscany, the CT and Lake Como were Siena and Lucca (in that order), which are very easy to get to as you travel to and out of Florence.

Posted by marrad1 OP

05/19/14 04:31 PM

2 posts

Thank you all so much! That is very helpful, and I really appreciate your comments.

Posted by Laura

Rick Steves' Europe

05/19/14 05:12 PM

16895 posts

You need not book the trains in advance, but once you reserve a hotel or hostel at your destination, and confirm local bus connections, then you could buy train tickets online for a longer trip like to Venice, to perhaps get an advance-purchase discount. You can take an afternoon or evening departure to give yourself more time at your destination (but another night to pay at a hotel) or aim for the very early morning bus.