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

"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.

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.

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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

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.

On 18 May 2004 14:17:33 -0700, (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.

We will be traveling in Northern Italy between Rome, Florence, Venice,
Cinque Terre, and some other small towns.

I can first assure you first of all that for a trip such as you
contemplate, the Trenitalia pass will be a waste of money. It only
pays off for people making a lot of long distance trips, whereas all
of yours are fairly short.

How far in advance do you need to make a reservation? Can you make
them at the train station?

For Eurostar trains, the reservation is part of the ticket and the
tickets can be bought up until the time the train departs. The
Trenitalia pass doesn't cover the full cost of the Eurostar ticket, so
you would have to buy a supplement at the train station, which will
include the cost of the reservation.

For the Intercity trains, I believe that the reservations must be made
at least several hours in advance. Reservations are not required on
these trains, and most people don't make them. My strategy is to buy a
second class ticket without a reservation. If I can't find a seat or
if my companions and I can't find seats together, we upgrade to first
class on the train, paying a small penalty in addition to the
difference in the cost of the tickets. I have only had to do this
twice. I have never found 1st class full, although once my daughter
couldn't get even a 1st class seat on a Eurostar train and had to take
a later train. This was on New Year's Eve, however, on a train heading
to Rome.

On some trains, such as those going to the Cinque Terre, there may not
be reservations at all, and there may only be second class.

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.

I don't know, as the only reservations I've ever made were included in
the price of Eurostar tickets. The first time I tried to make a
reservation in Italy, on my first visit (before I moved here), the
ticket agent talked my out of it. She said that if I just went to the
platform 20 minutes before the train left, I could board it in plenty
of time to find a seat, as the train originated there. Ever since,
I've just tried my luck with getting a seat.

Trenitalia has a new method of getting tickets in advance which may be
useful for some travellers. It's called "ticketless travel" and is
similar to electronic ticketing on airlines. It is only available for
Eurostar trains, and therefore wouldn't be available on some routes or
to some stations. There are two ways to get tickets.

1. By calling +39/199.166.177 (replace the "+" with your country's
international dialing prefix) and paying with a credit card. I don't
know whether the operators are prepared to handle requests in English.
In this case you will be given all the information necessary to
identify yourself and you will have to write it down and take it with
you on the train. The credit card used must be in the name of one of
the passengers and the passenger must be able to show identification
to the conductor.

2. By registering at the Trenitalia web site (www.trenitalia.it) and
buying the tickets online with a credit card. Registering for the
trenitalia site is now easier for foreigners, but the option isn't
shown on the English language page, so you would have to be capable of
navigating in Italian. You are not asked for an address or codice
fiscale, but just a name and email address, and a self-chosen userid.
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.

The web site says that if you lost your ticket id number, the
conductor is authorized to honor your ticket if he can verify by his
computer and your identification that you are indeed the person who
bought a ticket for the seat. (However, if you lost the id number, I
don't know how you would remember which seat had been assigned to
you.)

If you feel uncomfortable getting on the train without a ticket, you
can get a paper ticket from the machine in the train station by
entering your ticket id number. However, in that case, your name will
no longer appear in the conductor's palm computer and you will have to
show the paper ticket. In this case, it wouldn't matter whose name was
on the credit card used to buy the ticket.

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 don't know if there are any impediments to non-Italians using these
services, other than the language barrier. I would be interested to
hear from any non-Italians who have tried.
-----------
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

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

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

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

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)