Hi 7 of us (children included) are traveling in June to Italy. We fly into MPX and our first stay is in hu Venezia camping in town for 3 days. We would like to visit Venice and the small islands. Next we travel to Comogli for three days staying in a luxury apartment, then to Sestri Levanti for 3 days at Villa Alganese, then back to Milan for 2 days before heading home.
I would appreciate any and all travel tips. The best way to travel, things to see/do. I am also trying to decide if a Eurail pass is best to buy for the intercity travel. Thank you in advance.
Posted by
San Diego, California, USA
1147 posts
The Eurail pass is an easy answer "No". It has been quite a while since the Eurail pass made any sense in Italy.
=Tod
Posted by
154 posts
Ditto on the Eurail pass, from personal experience in 2022. It was a pain and not really savings.
If you are looking at high speed train travel in Italy, look at the Trentalia and Italo apps/websites. When you sign up for Italo they send frequent discount codes. We book via the apps—super easy and convenient.
Some of the places above may be served by local trains, which you will just buy at the station-be sure to validate.
Posted by
SoCal
1231 posts
It has been quite a while since the Eurail pass made any sense in Italy.
What a shame that we're using the final month of an unlimited 1st class pass there in October.
Guess we'll just need to muddle through.
Posted by
San Diego, California, USA
1147 posts
@jphbucks Not to hijack this thread but there is good information (as always) from The Man in Seat 61 website.
Here is a link that discusses the different rail passes: https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-italy.htm#railpasses
If you want to discuss the Eurail pass in Italy further I would search the previous questions and then start your own thread if you still have questions.
Have a great trip,
=Tod
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Thank you all for your feedback!
Posted by
San Diego, California, USA
1147 posts
Hello bethanymac1, and welcome to the fourm,
MXP is about an hour outside the city of Milan itself. Now the usual advice is to take a train, however with a party of seven you might look into taxi or private transport for the sake of your sanity. The taxi price is fixed from the airport into the city and it is more than 100e but with the cost of 7 train tickets you're probably breaking even. This is assuming you can get a van to carry all of you for the cost of the taxi or close to it. The added value of getting directly to your hotel after an international flight is not to be underestimated.
To get from Milan to Venice you should take the fast train and get off at the Venezia Mestre station which is the last station on land before it crosses the lagoon to Venice itself. Consult the website of the camping place for how to get from Mestre to there.
Are you planning on staying in Milan the night you land? Personally I think taking an international flight and then an hour into the city and the 2.5 hours to Venice and then the last leg in Venice sounds like a lot. Now I fly from the west coast so maybe if you are flying shorter and even going directly into Milan this is manageable, but with some many people it sounds potentially logistically challenging.
You will then crossing back to the west coast taking the train from Venezia Mestre to Camogli-S. Fruttuoso and I would expect this to take close to about six hours total since you are essentially crossing Italy near to its widest point. Camogli to Sestri Levanti is 30 minutes on the train. And then reverse the last leg of that trip to head back to Milan.
The state train company is Trenitalia - they run fast trains and local ones. https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html
.Italo is a private company that only runs fast trains. The service between the two is pretty similar. https://www.italotreno.it/en
You'll want to take the fast trains between big cities and these come with assigned seats on a specific train. The earlier you buy the cheaper the tickets but you're trading economy for flexibility. Check the restrictions for each ticket level by checking the little info button - essentially the cheaper they are the less flexible they are - really cheap tickets are no refund "use it or loose it" tickets while 'Base' allows for changes and refunds.
Local trains called regionale tickets are always the same price - just buy them when you need them.
Download the Trenitalia app to check schedules, buy tickets, validate them for travel and track trains in real time.
Always validate your regionale tickets - paper ones at the stamp machine and electronic ones in the app. You should be able to import your Trenitalia tickets into your app so you should have them there in addition to printed versions.
Really good general train information here: https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-italy.htm
Have a great trip!
=Tod