Gail

Faced with the need to get from Rome to Bellagio in one day (preferably with an arrival before dark), I see that I can get a one-way flight from Rome to Milan on Alitalia. It's double the 1st class train fare, but would cut off hours of train travel. It seems doable, but I wonder if anyone has had experience with flying Alitalia within Italy. <BR> <BR>Does anyone know the bus fare from Malpensa to Como? Or the fare for hydrofoil or ferry from Como to Bellagio? I'm trying to compare to cost of car rental from Malpensa. <BR> <BR>Thanks, <BR> <BR>Gail

Rex

Gail, <BR> <BR>Are you using MIL or LIN or MXP or BGY (Bergamo) when searching for airfares? Sometimes MIL will retrieve flights into/out of all three airports; other times it seems to ignore BGY - - and it is actually the most convenient of the three for Bellagio. <BR> <BR>I find $162.08 on Alitalia, connecting to Air One through Naples - - this may or may not be a synonym name for Aireurope - - www.aireurope.it - - which lists fares as low as $61.46-118.27 (Euros) but these are from Naples, not Rome. and they don't list a timetable for the route at all. <BR> <BR>Strangely enough, Expedia won't give a one way fare at all for ROM-MIL on June 1 (though it will price the RT!) nor does trying ROM-LIN one way work! <BR> <BR>My bottom line - - I'd vote for fly over train - - but the fare shopping is an interesting difficult challenge!

Rex

Well, I hit "post" prematurely perhaps - - I was looking at the fare and schedule info for ROM-MIL, and the FS website was being slow, so I went on without it. <BR> <BR>But now that I see that the train is so quick (only 4 and 1/2 hrs on the ES), maybe flying via Naples is NOT more attractive! I would have thought it a longer trip than that. Even I (a master leadfoot) wouldn't want to try to make the trip in 4 1/2 hrs by car! I don't know where you're starting in Rome, but center city to center city, this is a very fast method to make the trip. Of course, you still have to get to Bellagio, but with arrivals every hour, 16:00 to 22:00, I think you will make your "arrival before dark" with no problem.