Four of us are traveling for three weeks in Italy and France and plan to use trains as the main transportation from city to city. We will are going from Rome to Naples, Naples to Florence, Florence to Venice, Venice to Nice and Nice to Arles, France, a total of 5 traveling days. We had planned on point to point purchase, but wondering if a five travel day pass would be better? What has been your experience. Thanks
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
For your travels in Italy, you will mostly be on high-speed trains. In Italy, you wil pay a 10Euro supplemental fee for each high-speed that you are on. If you have a good lock on your travel schedule, you can go online with www.trentialia.com, register on the webstie, and shop for heavily discounted tickets. Yes you will be locked into a specific travel date and time and yes, the tickets are non-refundable. Just book 90 days out from your time of travel. If you intend to not buy online and just show up and buy your tickets, you will pay the full base fare. In this case, your pass will cover the base fare but not the supplemental fees. In France, please note that SNCF limits the seats on their trains to passholders. If you show up and those seats are taken, you either pay full fare to get on or wait until the next train. Where are you going after Arles? Will you be depating France from Paris? Are you aware of the great 1-stop high-speed runs from Avignon TGV to Paris? 2hrs 39min. Again, you can go online at www.tgv-europe.com and buy heavily discounted tickets if you buy early. Big Hint. Choose Great Britain as your ticket collection country. If you choose USA, you will be switched to RailEurope which you don't want.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33553 posts
To elaborate on Larry's information - if you are willing to commit to specific non-refundable trains, and buy them at their cheapest, you can save buckets and buckets of money over a pass. As he said, the passholder reservations for high speed trains in Italy are €10 per leg per person. On top of those reservations you also have to include the per day pass costs. If you buy tickets for those segments at their cheapest you can get tickets including the required reservations for as little as €9, €19 or €29 per leg per person. If you don't want to be so tied down then you need to compare the "base" (maximum walk up price) price to the daily pass costs.
Posted by
OP
Lone Tree, CO, United States
47 posts
Thanks for the replies. We took the advise and purchased two of our trips leaving others to when we get to Italy. And after our time Arles we are joining a river cruise up the Rhone and on to Paris as part of a tour.