Rail Passes

The rail pass will cover regional trains in their entirety. With an IC, you will have to reserve a seat at an additional cost. For really high speed trains (FC), ticket for everyone, pass or point-point, come with a seat reservation, but there is a pass holder surcharge, about €10, I think.

Addiing on to Lee's comments, there is a 10E supplemental fee for each high-speed that you will be on. This fee will include your seat reservation. Caution on the new Italo high-speed. They won't accept your pass. Only Trenitalia will. If you intend to ride the Circumvesuviana train from Naples to Sorrento, they won't accept your pass either. But, not to worry. The fare is only about 4E.

Unless you are doing a lot of train travel, it is not hard to make a rail pass in Italy economical. I think that Frank may have meant Unless you are doing a lot of train travel, it is hard to make a rail pass in Italy economical.

Kyle, It would be a good idea to check the details on every rail trip you're planning to take to determine which trains require reservations. You can check using either the Trenitalia or Deutsche Bahn websites. If you're caught without valid reservations on a train where these are compulsory, you may be fined on the spot and it won't be cheap (as I recall, about €40-50 per person)! The reservations are specific to a particular train and departure time so even if you have a reservation, if it's not the correct one for the train you're riding on, again you'll be fined. The same is also true when riding Regionale Trains using a P-P ticket that hasn't been validated in the yellow machine. Reservations are always required for the EuroStar Italia / Alta Velocita / Freccia trains, and usually for the Inter City trains (AFAIK). Happy travels!

For high speed trains in Italy it is cheaper to get a €9 MINI fare than to buy a pass-holder seat reservation of €10. And of course you use a day of your pass, too, at whatever high rate of $$$$ that is.

Just to be clear. ALL trains in Italy except for the Regional trains (R) required a seat reservation and therefore a supplement charge if using a rail pass. And you need a reservation for each leg. The only train you can easily jump on and off is a Regional train because they do not have seat reservation. If purchased far enough in advance you might find a mini fare of 9E but that is very limited and really more of a promotional things. Mini fares vary greatly by specific train, day of week, etc. But the discount is good but not refundable under most situations. There are no mini fares on Regional trains. Unless you are doing a lot of train travel, it is not hard to make a rail pass in Italy economical.