Travel
Travel By Train In Italy
Travelling by train in Italy shortly? News comes via the trenitalia.it site that, following what must have been an experiment whereby reservations were only obligatory on the weekends and at holiday periods, the high-speed Eurostar trains have gone back to being reservations-only. Not the ones running from Paris to London, you understand, but the ones that took the same name (because it sounded fun?) and ply from andtoMilan/Bologna/Florence/Rome/Naples right the way through to Palermo. The deal is that you buy a ticket for a specific train. What if you miss it? Change your mind? Cannot travel? If the empêchement occurs before the train is due to depart, you can change the date and time of travel free of charge, at a travel agency or at the station. If you miss the train, you have 24 hours to make a new reservation at a cost of three euro.
Eurostar (ES or Treni Eurostar Italia)
Italy’s premier train, not to be confused with the Eurostar that plies the English channel (the Italian Eurostar was first to claim the name). Seat reservations on Eurostar Italia are manditory. Eurostar travels swiftly between major Italian cities.
There are multitudes of different way to traverse Italy. Eurail passes connect the country to the rest of Europe, and flexi passes are available to roam as you please - offering a set number of travel days on any rail line over a certain time period (usually 4, 5, 7 or 12 days total). These passes - not to mention regular tickets - offer a variety of seating, from couchettes (private beds in shared sleeping rooms) on night trains to first and second class tickets for day travel.Italy’s train company, Trenitalia, is offering some special fares for winter. The Trenitalia Pass Winter Promo is good for travel through March 31. It’s easy to plan your train travel on the Trenitalia site. You can check the schedules and prices. You can also check the news section for the latest information on train strikes. No need to worry about strikes during the Olympics - a truce was negotiated.
