Need to travel from Arles, France to Monterosso, Italy on Tuesday, May 26. Have checked schedule on www.bahn.de and realize that we will have a long day with several train changes.
Question: Can I purchase one ticket that includes the entire trip or must I break the trip into "France" and "Italy" segments for purchase?
Have not purchased a train trip that spans more than one country before so not sure how to proceed. I believe that if the trip must be divided into two purchases (one per country) that I can purchase the "France" part now because within 90 days but would have to wait for the "Italy" part until within 60 days.
We are both over 60 so we get a discount on French trains. Not sure about Italy.
Live in US and would like to purchase tickets for this trip in advance if possible.
Thanks for any help you can provide!
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10625 posts
I looked on rome2rio.com to verify the trains. First is a local train from Arles to Marseille run by the French National Railroad (sncf). This ticket you can buy in Arles, as the ticket price doesn't change on a local train (called a TER on the French railroad site). In Marseille you take a Thello train to Genoa (thello.com); it leaves once a day and is preferable to the slower local trains.
Once you get to Genoa, there's a train hourly to Monterosso run by Trenitalia. Since three different companies are running these three trains, I doubt you can get it booked on one ticket, but it appears that crossing from France into Italy on the Thello train is a non-issue.
Hopefully someone else can help you with the Genoa-Monterosso train because I don't know this line.
Also, perhaps someone else can give you a better route and or better information than this or even suggest a plane connection.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16895 posts
The DB schedule link will reflect the afternoon trains that Bets suggested, which get you into Monterosso at 23:15. It also shows a morning option, departing at 8:25 and arriving Monterosso at 19:00, with 3 connections and the first leg by bus.
Sine the European railway web sites only sell tickets for their own services, and have some payment foibles, a US reseller like www.capitainetrain.com or Rail Europe are your best options for one-stop shopping. France's senior discounts don't apply to the faster TGV trains. Both countries sell Senior discount cards, but they're not worthwhile for you. Booking soon is the best way to get discounts. The tickets will be issued as several separate documents, and on Rail Europe's site, for instance, it generally works better to add each leg or pair of legs to the shopping cart separately; the cart can't really handle more than one connection on a booked itinerary.
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32352 posts
ms,
On this trip you'll have to balance both overall travel time and ease of travel (ie: number of changes). The train I'd probably choose is a departure from Arles at 07:00, arriving Monterosso at 18:42 (time 11H:42M, 3 changes at Marseille-St.-Charles, Nice Ville and Ventimiglia, reservations compulsory on the second leg via TGV). Once you've finalized your travel dates, you can pre-purchase the tickets for the French rail trips at www.capitainetrain.com (they don't handle Italy at this time).
The train from Ventimiglia to Monterosso is a Regionale, so you can buy the ticket when you arrive in Ventimiglia. You have a 32 minute stop there, so that should be more than enough time. DON'T forget to validate the ticket prior to boarding the train, or you'll risk hefty fines which will be collected on the spot! The trip from Ventimiglia to Monterosso will be a bit "long" as the train will be making numerous stops. However, once you arrive in Monterosso, you'll probably find it was worth the effort.
Another option would be to use a budget flight, and I had a brief look at that. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any good options. The lowest cost choice on a flight to Pisa appears to be Vueling, but that involves a layover in Barcelona and a total travel time of 7H:20M. In addition, I don't believe they have flights every day so it could be challenging to fit that to your schedule. By the time the usual airport hassles are added as well as the time from Pisa to Monterosso, I suspect a flight will ultimately be longer than the train trip. I'd probably still go with the rail trip, as I'm sure it will be much more pleasant than a flight.
Posted by
California 🦋
5293 posts
Msweeney,
Here is a thought you may want to consider...
I have traveled this route in the past, however we started in Avignon, then traveled to Nice & spent a couple of nights there, then we took train to Monterosso.
If you choose to do this, it will break up the trip & you will get to Monterosso in the daytime.
It's very easy to get to Avignon (17mins) by train (from Arles), then you'd take a TGV (high speed) train from Avignon to Nice (3 hrs, 8mins).
Stay in Nice 1-2 nights then travel to Monterosso.
Here are the travel details from Nice to Monterosso:
- You will take a train from Nice to Ventimiglia (Italy)
- then transfer to another train from Ventimiglia to Genova (Genoa)
- then transfer to another train that will take you from Genoa to
Monterosso.
You can check train schedules & purchase all your train tickets on this website: http://www.bahn.com