My wife and I are going to be traveling in Italy this September. This is our first trip to Italy. Our plan is stay in Venice for 2 nights, then go to Florance for 2 nights; from Florance take a day trip to Pisa back to Florance; then go to Rome for 2 nights. Please give me some suggestion as should I purchase the railpass or should I purchase the ticket at station for point to point? What's the difference between using Eurostar or regional train? How can I tell the difference? Thank you in advance.
Posted by
Ottawa, Canada
4555 posts
You won't need a rail pass....point-2-point will be far less expensive. "Eurostar Italia" is simply the name for one of their faster inter-regional trains....as opposed to the Eurostar that goes under the English Channel. You can tell by going to the Italian national rail site, Trenitalia, and inputting your travel details. They only go 60 days in advance, so just enter some dummy dates within that timeframe on the days of the week you plan to travel. Any train labelled ES is the Eurostar Italia. ES-AV is the newer, faster (sometimes) version of the Eurostar, and more expensive. IC is InterCity. R is regional. Generally speaking, the faster the train, the more expensive. However, check the schedules closely. Some times, the IC is virtually as fast as the ES and ES-AV, but cheaper.
Posted by
Omaha, NE, USA
8 posts
I just returned from Italy from 6/21/09-7/5/09.
We took the following route: Milan - Padova - Venice - Rome - Florence - Pisa - Montecatini - Cinque Terre - Milan.
The advice I found before we left was to add up the cost of the individual legs and see if they were more or less than the pass. Even with all the trips above, the pass was more expensive. So I didn't get the pass.
However I wish I had. The reason is that you validate the pass once and then simply get on any train you want after that. The additional cost of the pass would have been well worth it to avoid queueing at every train station and dealing with the not always so friendly workers behind the ticket counters.
Posted by
OP
broomfield
2 posts
thank you for the suggestions!...