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Italian Train Reservations?
My wife and I are going to be traveling in Italy during June and are
confused by the system for train reservations. We are planning on buying Trentalia passes before our trip. We will be traveling in Northern Italy between Rome, Florence, Venice, Cinque Terre, and some other small towns. How far in advance do you need to make a reservation? Can you make them at the train station? How much should a 1st class/2nd class reservation cost? The websites I have seen which sell reservations seems to be much more expensive than the prices listed in guidebooks. Thanks! Jason |
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Italian Train Reservations?
"Jason" wrote in message om... My wife and I are going to be travelling in Italy during June and are confused by the system for train reservations. We are planning on buying Trentalia passes before our trip. We will be traveling in Northern Italy between Rome, Florence, Venice, Cinque Terre, and some other small towns. How far in advance do you need to make a reservation? Can you make them at the train station? All of the main stations have ticket machines which work in English, on which you can make reservations, buy tickets, get train timetables, etc. You can pay using cash or credit card. You can also do this at the ticket office, but it is much easier at the machines if you do not speak Italian How much should a 1st class/2nd class reservation cost? The websites I have seen which sell reservations seems to be much more expensive than the prices listed in guidebooks. Look on the trenitalia website for prices http://www.trenitalia.it/. Italian trains are very cheap by European standards, it will be almost certainly much cheaper to buy the tickets as you go rather than using a pass. Even with pass you still have to make the reservations, so not much time is saved. |
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Italian Train Reservations?
On 18 May 2004, Jason wrote:
My wife and I are going to be traveling in Italy during June and are confused by the system for train reservations. We are planning on buying Trentalia passes before our trip. I cannot help about reservations (or supplements) on top of a pass. I just use plain tickets. But you should not be overly worried. How far in advance do you need to make a reservation? Can you make them at the train station? First of all reservation is usually not necessary, and sometimes not possible at all. - reservation is not possible on local trains (up to R, IR) - reservation is not required on IC trains, and is usually not necessary unless you will be sure to have a seat (or nearby seats) in a peak period. This reservation comes at an extra price. - reservation is compulsory on ES trains, but is included in the price of the ticket, and you can buy the ticket at the station just before departure. In the worst case you will stand (I believe only on old ETR450 you are not allowed to stand) - reservation is of course required for sleeper and couchette service, but is included in the price of the bed or berth. How much should a 1st class/2nd class reservation cost? I have no recent figures, I'd say a few euros. To get an idea try to compare the cost of an IC ticket with an ES ticket for the same stretch. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- is a newsreading account used by more persons to avoid unwanted spam. Any mail returning to this address will be rejected. Users can disclose their e-mail address in the article if they wish so. |
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Italian Train Reservations?
Hi Jason!
First of all, you can make a reservation even 1 hour before you get on the train, if there are seats available, my advice is : make the reservation just a day ahead, about the cost, First class cost is a little bit higher than second class, but basically Travellin' by italian trains is cheaper than the other europeen countries! I'm Italian and I live 10 minutes far from Venice, so if You needs advices, send me an email! Have good time in Italy! Massimo "Jason" ha scritto nel messaggio om... My wife and I are going to be traveling in Italy during June and are confused by the system for train reservations. We are planning on buying Trentalia passes before our trip. We will be traveling in Northern Italy between Rome, Florence, Venice, Cinque Terre, and some other small towns. How far in advance do you need to make a reservation? Can you make them at the train station? How much should a 1st class/2nd class reservation cost? The websites I have seen which sell reservations seems to be much more expensive than the prices listed in guidebooks. Thanks! Jason |
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Italian Train Reservations?
On Wed, 19 May 2004 09:59:04 +0200, Giovanni Drogo
wrote: - reservation is compulsory on ES trains, but is included in the price of the ticket, and you can buy the ticket at the station just before departure. In the worst case you will stand (I believe only on old ETR450 you are not allowed to stand) I am not certain you said what you mean here. ES trains do sell out. First class definitely, and I do not think you can stand in first class, and we could not buy second class tickets in Feb, BLQ-VCE(sold out) Everything from the west was snow delayed. Took a local that started in Bologna. First class cost under 25% of the ES, and took about 5% longer. |
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Italian Train Reservations?
On Wed, 19 May 2004 07:16:34 -0400, gerald wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2004 09:59:04 +0200, Giovanni Drogo wrote: - reservation is compulsory on ES trains, but is included in the price of the ticket, and you can buy the ticket at the station just before departure. In the worst case you will stand (I believe only on old ETR450 you are not allowed to stand) I am not certain you said what you mean here. ES trains do sell out. First class definitely, and I do not think you can stand in first class, and we could not buy second class tickets in Feb, BLQ-VCE(sold out) Everything from the west was snow delayed. Took a local that started in Bologna. First class cost under 25% of the ES, and took about 5% longer. You are not allowed to stand on any Eurostar trains, in any class. All seats are reserved. Second class does sell out sometimes, but it is rare for 1st class to sell out. The worst that could happen is that you would have to take a later train. On the routes mentioned, between Rome, Florence and Venice, trains are very frequent and it would not be a big inconvenience. To be absolutely sure, you could buy your tickets the day before, or use the new "ticketless travel" feature (see my other post). IC trains never "sell out", but it is possible that they may fill up and you can't find a seat. In that case, I upgrade to 1st class on the train by finding a conductor and paying the difference in price plus a small penalty. I have never found 1st class anywhere near full on an IC train. ----------- Barbara Vaughan My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup |
#8
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Italian Train Reservations?
B writes:
The option of buying an electronic ticket isn't shown on the English-language page either. When using the Italian language page, you must use the Italian version of the city names, e.g., Firenze, Roma, Venezia. Again, the credit card must be in the name of one of the passengers. An email confirmation will be emailed to you, and you should print this and carry it with you. On the train, you will take the seat assigned to you when you bought the ticket. The conductor will have a little palm computer with the details of your ticket. He may or may not ask to see identification. I'm going to risk sounding like a complete idiot -- if you go the e-ticket route, I assume you don't have to attempt to validate anything? You just show up with a printout of the e-ticket and ID and board the train (and wait for the conductor to ask to see a ticket)? How do you know which train car and which seat? Does the confirmation e-mail say so, or will the conductor tell you where to go once he checks your ticket id number against his computer? If you are registered with the trenitalia site, you can also buy tickets for non-Eurostar trains, using a credit card, and pick them up from the ticket machine. So in this case you'd still get the confirmation e-mail? But it and its code wouldn't be useful on the train. You'd still have to use the code to get a paper ticket and validate that ticket as usual? -- Rich Carreiro |
#9
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Italian Train Reservations?
If you are registered with the trenitalia site, you can also buy
tickets for non-Eurostar trains, using a credit card, and pick them up from the ticket machine. [I've registered with Trenitalia and gone through the purchase process except for actually entering my credit card information and purchasing the ticket] I assume that on the initial purchase page (where you select the number of passengers and whether 1st or 2nd class) that under the "Ritiro biglietti" section you would pick the "Self Service" option if you wanted to be able to pick up the tickets from a ticket machine? -- Rich Carreiro |
#10
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Italian Train Reservations?
Rich Carreiro wrote:
I'm going to risk sounding like a complete idiot -- if you go the e-ticket route, I assume you don't have to attempt to validate anything? You just show up with a printout of the e-ticket and ID and board the train (and wait for the conductor to ask to see a ticket)? How do you know which train car and which seat? Does the confirmation e-mail say so, or will the conductor tell you where to go once he checks your ticket id number against his computer? The confirmation email gives you the following informations: Date and number of train Itinerary and timetable Train car and seat(s) Number of places, class and price Reservation code (PNR) Reservation change code If you do not have a printer, you simply copy out of the email these data. The essential informations are your seat number(s) and PNR code - only you and the conductor know this info, so if your PNR code matches the code the conductor has on his/her terminal for that place(s), the reservation is validated and the conductor prints a paper ticket for you. He/she may check also the name of the person reserving the ticket. The reservation change code is needed if you have to change the reservation (before the train leaves, or no more than 30 minutes or something like that after the train has left). -- Luca Logi - Firenze - Italy e-mail: Home page: http://www.angelfire.com/ar/archivarius (musicologia pratica) |
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