Train Travel / Theft

If each person in your party will have two pieces of luggage, there probably won't be room for it all on the rack above your seats. If the train isn't crowded, you might be able to put a piece or two on the floor. However, you'll probably need to use the storage areas at the ends of the carriage. Since that luggage will be out of sight, it's a good idea to use a bicycle cable with a lock to secure your luggage. Here is a quote from Rick Steves' Travel Tips section: "On the train, be alert at stops, when thieves can dash on and off — with your bag. When sleeping on a train (or at an airport, or anywhere in public), clip or fasten your pack or suitcase to the seat, luggage rack, or yourself. Even the slight inconvenience of undoing a clip foils most thieves. Be on guard in train stations, especially upon arrival, when you may be overburdened by luggage and overwhelmed by a new location."

Doneice - the single greatest lesson that any traveler can get from Rick Steves is to pack light.

I keep a journal on our trips and on the flight home I write about things to do to make the next one better and on each list since 1981 there is an entry that says "bring less stuff". Less stuff with you means more fun and convenience when you travel. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Have fun!

As the prior poster stated, you should rethink your luggage. We have been on five European cruises ranging from 10 to 16 days. We will depart Rome on May 3oth for our sixth. We generally extend our travels for another two weeks after the cruises. This will be our first cruise without our two sons. For all of our cruises everyone has one carryon size bad (backpack style) and, for the four us, one extra carryon (wheel style) that contains the extra clothes we use for the cruise. That bag is never open when traveling after the cruise and it is a bit of a pain to drag around,

For the upcoming cruise by oursevles we are concerned about the extra space in the rolling bag, so may go to a different and smaller size bag. Not sure how that will work out. But packing light is a learned experience. I will not describe how much "needless stuff" we took on our first cruise. Rethink your luggage --- your life will be easier.

My last trip which was my first trip to Europe I packed light, or rather the lightest I have ever packed. Even tho we were gone for a month I still found I over packed.
So this next trip we are packing even lighter.
Each of us are using a 21 inch roller bag.
My travel partner will be taking a medium size backpack and I will be taking a camera backpack.

I am sure we could possibly even travel lighter than this but that would be a bit tough for us.

We've taken a cruise from Venice also. We did take an extra bag (we had also done a bike tour, so we had bike clothing also). It was quite a hassle to drag the extra large bag up and over the stairs and on and off the vaparetto. Last summer we did a similar trip and took much less and had one medium rolling bag in addition to our backpacks. It was better, but I'm wanting to do less. Since few cruise ships "require" dress up clothes, we may not take the suit with dress shoes next time (my dress takes up no space). Other than dress clothes and biking gear, we use the same stuff for 1 week or 6.