Posted: 2006-06-11 12:24:00
This is personal advice based on my recent trip to Italy.
PREPARATION
If you are planning your own thing, it’s vital to be sure of getting where you want when you want. You need to make as sure as you can of the transport before booking accommodation – if you want to do so. Start with flights out. If you can have some flexibility about dates, you can save a large amount. For example jet 2 don’t start their flights from Manchester to Pisa until late May and the return flights were at a nominal cost for the first two days only. There was no problem in finding a cheap trip out from Leeds/Bradford to Milan – also with jet 2 as it happens but it need not have been.
Now for train travel in Italy. Trenitalia allows for search on a specific date so the first thing to do is work out an itinerary of where you want to go each day. I do this in a table on a word document with rows for each day and columns for From, at, to, at, type [bus or train,] accommodation.
Don’t let yourself in for supplements unless it’s absolutely necessary. Italian Eurostar trains are no more guaranteed to run on time than any other! Even if you have a pass, you will have to pay any train supplement. Actually you would need to be planning an immense amount of travel to justify the cost of a pass. There’s no point in buying tickets before you go, as they will probably cost you more. The kilometric tickets still mentioned in some guidebooks no longer exist. Now an important point as I see it, though some won’t agree. Don’t be satisfied with noting down only what looks best – unless it allows for LONG breaks between trains. If your train is running late, it will keep down stress levels if you have noted a fall-back solution. If you are going to stay in a place that’s remote from its station, make every effort to find out about contact buses. My failure to get this right in Trevi meant we ended up paying €30 for a taxi! In places more geared to tourism like Perugia or Assissi, buses to the centre are frequent.
You will probably find you want to do some stretches by long distance bus [autocar.] There may be no train service or the times may be more convenient. The existence of websites varies between companies but there’s a reasonable chance of finding a suitable site from one of the portals of your area. For Abruzzo, ‘arpaonline’ provided an excellent site. Urban buses [autobus or sometimes ‘pullman’] are harder – usually your best chance is the official website of the place but you may only get it in Italian – or not at all.
Now you are ready for your accommodation. I never understand why so few people mention the official Italian Tourist Office site of www.ent.it, which I have found most helpful. Of course it usually gives the website of the accommodation, if it has one. I try to get 3 or 4 star paces but that’s a matter of personal choice.
IN ITALY
Get used to the ticket system as fast as you can. For both urban bus and train it’s vital to buy tickets before travelling – long distance buses usually allow for purchase on the bus – but use the ticket office where there is one. There are often train ticket offices near the centre of large towns and a tobacco shop or news-stand [edicola] will usually either sell urban bus tickets or tell you who does.
Remember that, whenever you have purchased tickets in advance, they MUST be validated [stamped. This involves sticking train tickets into a machine on the platform before you get on and bus tickets into a machine on the bus. Checking is not universal but sufficiently frequent to make failure to validate a mugs’ game and fines are substantial.
It sometimes takes a while to remember but you will have to get back after many journeys so it makes sense to buy extra tickets for this – it may be harder to find somewhere at the other end and anyway it’s a waste of time.
Sometimes the same train may act as what is shown as 2 different ones on a website – or even a station departure board. For instance we were expecting to change at L’Áquila when going from Terni to Sulmona and we were getting very bothered about missing the connection. We leapt off – but fortunately we were directed back onto the same train before it left for Sulmona.
The difference between departure boards or notices should be obvious but it’s easy to make a mistake when you’re in a hurry. This matters if you go to the wrong platform.
Treat the planning as part of your holiday. Enjoy it and feel free to contact me if you need help.
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Grieve not for that which you cannot do but rejoice in that which you can.
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