My husband and I are going to Europe for the first time in Sept. and I'm researching how to travel by train. We will be going from Paris to Antibes - to Cinque Terre - to Rome and then to Florence. It looks like the most economical purchase would be the 4 day France/Italy pass, is this correct? Thanks for any help and suggestions you can give me!
Posted by
Bend, OR, United States
1167 posts
You can get all of the information you should need at: http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/rail_menu.htm
It will help you figure out if point-to-point tickets are a better deal. Being limited to only 4 days of travel is one big downside of the pass, especially if you are making relatively short trips.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Be advised that a raipass is not the best choice for travel in Italy. If you ride on Eurostar-class trains, you will pay an additional 18Euro for seat reservations. This is often 50% of a P2P ticket for the same destination that includes the seat reservation. For your travel plans above, it's not worth the cost of a railpass in Italy. Don't be scared away from getting your tickets when you get there. Too many North Americans are freaked by a train system they don't understand. It works really well and you can easily get the tickets when you get there. There are more train runs in Italy than you can possibly immagine (try 8,000 train runs a day).
Posted by
OP
Tumwater, WA, USA
5 posts
This relieves a lot of anxiety for me as I found all the information on the internet regarding the trains a bit confusing. P2P is what we'll do since there's 8,000 trains that run a day (unbelievable)! We should have no problem finding a train to our destination. Thanks!!
Posted by
Chicago, IL
103 posts
Not a huge issue, but doing Cinque Terre - Rome - Florence involves some backtracking. You can save a few hours by going CT - Florence - Rome instead.
Your flight plans might make my comments moot, but it's something to consider.