Trying to determine regional train fares

I'd be amazed if the pass paid off.

For Regionale fares look on the same day this week. Regionale prices never change but are never shown more than a week out. They are cheap, and if you are using a pass day on a Regionale you are throwing money away.

Rome to Florence is only 90 minutes on a fast train. With advance planning and buying non-changeable/non-refundable tickets well in advance like you would do with air fares, you can do the journey for €9 or €19, without a senior discount. If you have a pass you will have to make a mandatory €10 seat reservation each, and in that case you are throwing money away with the pass.

Many people prefer the bus to Siena because it drops you in the centre, rather than at the bottom of the hill. The bus won't take your pass.

The train to Siena from Firenze is 90 minutes of Regionale. See what I said above about Regionales. About the same time Firenze to Cortona, also a Regionale.

The only way between Cortona and Siena by train is into Firenze, change train, and back out - over 3 hours each way. A day trip with over 6 hours on Regionale trains would test my patience.

There may be a bus...

If it were me in the Tuscan hills I'd have a car.

If you have a pass in Italy, there will be additional fees for seat reservations. ALL trains in Italy except Regionale trains require a seat reservation.

Hi, Debbie. Even though Cortona is not shown, it's pretty easy to do the math with the ticket-cost map at http://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/italy-rail-passes. In this case, it will be cheaper to buy tickets as you go. You might spend roughly $100 per person for 2nd class tickets or $150 for 1st class. There is no senior discount on a pass and no senior discount on tickets unless you buy a separate card, which I wouldn't recommend for this short trip. Buying tickets at the station is easy enough to do, or all at one stop in Rome.

Debbie, you will not save any money in Italy with any kind of Eurail pass - senior discount or not. Italy does charge an additional 10Euro supplemental fee to ride their faster and nicer trains. The train from Rome to Florence would be such a train. All of the trains for your other listed destinations are Regionale trains. Fares are so cheap that its a shame to pay a large amount of money for a pass when the round trip train fares are in the 10E-20E range. Let's discuss.

The base fare from Rome to Florence is 43Euro. If you are willing to accept a non-refundable, non-transferrable ticket, you can buy discounted tickets online up to 119 days out for 19Euro. If the 19Euro fares are sold out, it's 29Euro and so on until the discounted tickets for that train are gone. Then, it's the full base fare of 43Euro. Or, you can buy the base fare tickets when you get to Italy. You don't indicate your travel dates so I'm not able to show you fares for a particular day.

For Regionale train fares, www.trenitalia.com does not show the fares for dates more than 7 days out from the time of travel. If you want to see the fares for Regionale trains, simply put in a date that is 2-3 days from when you are signing on. You'll see the fares. Note that there is no train station in Cortona. You take a train to one of two nearby train stations and you will take a bus from the train station up to the town. Fare for Firenze/Siena is 8.60Euro one-way. Just over an hour travel time. Fare for Firenze/Camucia-Cortona is 10Euro one-way. About 90 minutes overall travel time. Never a discount on Regionale tickets. Also, you cannot buy Regionale tickets online more than 7 days out from the time of travel. Simply buy your Regionale tickets when you get to Italy. Hardly worth paying big money for a Eurail pass.

A couple of hints. 1) For Firenze/Siena, check out the SITA bus. It's non-stop from Florence and it drops you off at the Via Tozzi which is near the city center. The train station is about 2km down the hill. The SITA bus station is about 1,000' from the main Florence train station. 2) Be aware that the east/west day trip from Siena to Cortona via a train change at Chiusi takes about 3.5hrs each way by train. Many routings will take you back through Florence first. It's still 3.5hrs. And, there is only one bus a day each way (may two during the summer). By rental car, it's about 90 minutes but unfortunately, the way the train schedules work, it's about 3.5hrs. Thus, you might have second thoughts about a day trip to Cortona from Siena. Very hard to do.

Thank you all so much for explaining this for me. Now I see why I could not see fares for the Regionale trains. Also, I now see the fares I was presuming are actually lower overall, especially farther in advance. Good!

It appears that buses between Cortona and Siena only run every 3 hours or so, so that makes going to city center a non-issue for us. We may use the travel convenience of staying in a hotel near the train station and not worry about how we get to the center of the city for our day of sightseeing. Is it that much of a hassle or time-eater?

From what I see, we can take the train between Siena and Cortona or vice versa (we are still clarifying this part of our trip) and not have to go all the way back to Florence. If I am wrong, that would have a definite bearing on our plans.

Does anyone know how traveling from either Cortona or Siena to Rome is? No high-speed train like Florence has, but is it perhaps better than going back up to Florence just to take a faster train to Rome? Arriving earlier in Rome may not matter that much to us. We are traveling light, so baggage isn't a real concern.

I don't know about Cortona, but I took a bus from Siena to Rome. Easy peasy! It drops you off at the Tiburtina train station, which has a connection to the metro. Just a few stops from termini, and then you can get wherever you want.

Angela, how long did the Siena-to-Rome bus ride take? Interesting.

Larry, thank you for that detailed response. To be clear (which I probably wasn't), we are overnighting in Cortona prior to our Siena visit, and are unsure yet whether to also stay overnight in Siena or do only a day trip from Cortona. If daytripping, we would take an evening train back to Florence (we still have hotel reservations there) and then proceed to Rome the following morning by train. It we stay overnight in Siena, we would take a train (or a bus, Angela!) down to Rome.

The train schedule I am seeing does show a 3.5 hour ride from Cortona to Siena. Much earlier departure than a bus, I believe. It is what it is. We have considered doing two day-trips from Florence, but we want to stay at least one night in a great B&B in Cortona to give our trip some added flavor (reservation made). We know Siena is really nice in the evening. We have a hotel room available. Both places on Rick's list, of course. Decisions!

I took the train from Siena to Cortona. Both stations are outside the city walls, but have local bus transportation to the center of town. I prefer trains to buses when possible.

Debbie, the bus from Siena to Rome takes about 3.5hrs. About the same as the train. One difference. The bus goes to the large bus station adjacent to the Roma-Tiburtina train station and not Roma-Termini. Yes you can take the train from Siena to Cortona or vis-a-versa without going through Florence. As I mentioned above, you change trains at Chiusi which is east of Siena. The bus to/from Rome stops there as well. Again, 3.5hrs. You can easily get a bus to Chiusi from Siena but I'm not sure of the bus runs between Chiusi and Cortona. For Siena to Assisi, the bus runs once a day in the late afternoon. www.eurolines.com

Hi Debbie,

You may want to check out this easy site: www.rome2rio.com
Enter any two cities, and it will show you the transportation options on the left column, amount of time, and approx. cost. The map shows you the route, for instance, by train with the connections. I used it when making decisions of where we wanted to stay overnight on our Switzerland to Rome trip.

I use rome2rio.com a lot as well, but know that it does have its limits. For example, it will only show you one option for each method of transportation (e.g. bus or train) when there might actually be several different ways to get from Point A to Point B on bus or train.

Again, thank you fellow travelers, for making me a bit smarter and clarifying some options.