Raileurope Eurail
Visiting three cities in Central/Northern/Southern Italy. How can I save on train tickets?
This March I’m taking a 9-day vacation to Italy. I’m visiting Rome, Venice and a third, smaller town–either Cinque Terre or Sicily. However, I’m a student (21 years old) and want to save money when possible. Is there are a pass that I should use?
- I see these passes on Rick Steves’ website, but they all seem to say lines like “three days in two months”… and I have no idea what that is even supposed to mean. I can only use the train for three days? I have to wait three days between each ride? Huh? hhttp://ricksteves.raileurope.com/rail-tickets-passes/eurail-italy-pass/discounts-and-pricing.html#youth
- I am told that the Eurail pass is a waste of money since I’m not going between countries.
You’re not doing enough train travel for a Eurail pass to save you any money – especially since you’d need to make reservations and pay an additional supplement for most of the trains you’d be likely to use here in Italy. You can check schedules and prices for trains on the Italian train website. The English language interface is here: http://www.ferroviedellostato.it/homepage_en.html
You have a couple of choices to minimize the costs. One is to take the night train from Rome to Venice or vice-versa. Going in the direction from Rome to Venice, the train leave the Roma Tiburtina station at 10:36 pm and arrives in Venice at 5:26 am the next morning. The standard fare is 37.50 euro, but you can get up to a 30% discount for early purchase of a seat (i.e., a 2nd class ticket will be 26 euro). I would get a berth and sleep in one of the 4 bed compartments for 42.60 euro at the 30% discount rate though – it’s more comfortable. You can sleep through the night and not have to pay for a hotel/hostel for that night. The other option is to stick to the slower regional trains point-to-point, Rome to Florence, Florence to Bologna and Bologna to Venice or vice versa. This is relatively cheap, but there are few regional trains available and it takes a lot longer to get there – you’ll also need a place to stay for a night.
Sicily is a long way from either Rome or Venice, but you can work out schedules on the provided site. Rome to Palermo is an 11 to 13 hour train trip. Cinque Terre is also not so convenient to get to, you may need a few train changes depending on where you start from. Unfortunately, the night train from Venice to Nice no longer runs. that used to be a great way to go because you could sleep to Genova and change there to an early regional train to Cinque Terre.