Best Italian transportation- 1st time visitors
 

What is the best way to travel in Italy (Rome-Venice-Florence-Tuscany-Cinque Terre-Rome)? This is the first time my friend & I will be going as 25 year old chicas from the USA. Thank you in advance for your help :)

To trvel from one major city to another train is simplest - as long as yuo don;t have too much luggage to haul aroud. to really see much of Tuscany yuo need to rent a car - or be hostage to what can be quite limited train and/or bus schedules.

You don;t say how many dys you have - which can make a differnce.

Also - ifyou do;thve your air tickets yet - do get an open jaws - into Venice ad out of Rome - or vice versa - much more convenient and no more expensive.

As a general rule, you don't want anything to do with a car and cities in Italy. A combination of heavy traffic, high parking charges, and many ZTL (permit only areas) make driving very difficult.

I have seldom had any problems with trains in Italy, but there is a correlation between speed and price, so you can get from Rome to Venice in less than 4 hours, but it will cost €76 or you can take 6 hours and save €30 on the price.

There are occasions where a bus is the best option, for example Florence to Siena or Siena to Rome, but probably not for any of your plans (A quick search Rome to Venice by bus found a fare of €25, but a journey time of over 10 hours)

Thank you both for your help! This seems to be unanimously the the opinion of everyone- take any means other then car :)

Also @ nytraveler- we are going for 12 days + two days flights... ANY recommendations in regards to Italy are appreaciated. We're going end of Apirl 2012 :)

A 6-day Italy Railpass for Youths under 26 costs $237 or about $40 a day for unlimited train travel - fully flexible to chose trains as you go along - no need for advance booking that locks you into a certain train or about 30 euros a day - but you do have to pay 10 euros for a seat reservation with a pass so make it 40 euros a day

peruse trenitalia.com and see if you can do you rail travel plans for 40 euros a day (a 5-day pass is about the same per day)

Tuscany is a big area. Where exactly do you plan to travel in Tuscany?

Bus is a better option for some areas (trains simply don't go everywhere).

6 places in 12 days is 3 too many. You will spend the bulk of your time getting from one place to another, checking in and out of hotels and packing/unpacking. In 12 days I would do 3 places (3 hotels) with a day trip from Florence into Tuscany if you want.

Otherwise this vacation will just be a very expensive blur.

buses are best best for practically any Tuscan hilltown - they go right up to the top of the hill, trains like at Sienna, drop you off at the bottom of the hill a long poke or bus or taxi ride from the top.

PalenQ puts it right, what are "chicas"?

Thank you all!!
@nytraveler, I thought tuscany, florence and cinque terra were all near each other, so we thought we could do 1 day each, but I guess not. Nothing is set in stone.

@bilboburger, chicas are "girls" in spanish :)

1 day is fine for the Cinque Terre and you could base in Florence for say 3-4 days and do from there a trip by bus to a hilltown like Siena or San Gimignano, etc.

One day in the Cinque Terre requires 2 nights there plus the time to travel there and away. Rewrite your itinerary in nights rather than days. And look at the time it takes to travel between stops. The German train site is useful: www.bahn.de/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml or of course Trenitalia: http://tinyurl.com/3eeyzn.

You really don't have enough time for this many stops. Consider dropping the CT since it's weather-dependent. Nothing to do there if it rains. And rural Tuscany is best seen by car. Save it for another trip.

Also have you bought your plane tickets? If not or if you can change them easily, consider an open-jaws ticket; into Venice or Pisa, out of Rome. Or vice versa. (Pisa is an easy train ride to Florence.) This would save you precious time backtracking to Rome. You should be in Rome the day before your flight.

Alternatively, upon your arrival in Rome take that first day to go to the furthest point in your itinerary, to Venice or the Cinque Terre. You will be too sleepy and jet-lagged to sightsee much that day anyway.

That's the trouble with travel-planning. You have to pare things down. As Rick Steves says, plan to return.

Thank goodness I thought chicas were little-sausages so I was confused.

The typical first timer would want to do something like Rome, Venice Florence. I've been going to Italy for 10 years now and only got to Rome and FLorence this year and have yet to get to Venice (unlike Mrs bilbo)

A logical path might be 4 nights in Rome (including the first night which will be ruined by jet lag), train to Venice for 3 nights there and train to Florence for the rest with train tips to Pisa, Lucca and a bus trip to one of San Gim, Voltera, Siena, Montelcino etc (Siena is the best as a larger town though each has its knockers).

Getting between each of these by car is easy but, guess what none of these is designed for car use and as there are only two of you the train makes complete sense.

Rome-Venice-Florence-Tuscany-Cinque Terre-Rome

Agree, girls, that you have too much on your plate. Stick to 3 locations at most.

Also agree open jaw if you can. Fly into Venice and home from Rome. Or into Rome and home from Venice.

4 nights Rome, 3 nights Florence (taking one day to bus to Siena for the day) and then 3 nights Venice. Perfect trip.

Buy 2nd class seats on the Freccia- trains (bullet trains). You do not need 1st class. 2nd class are lovely seats. :)

Read some trip reports here. You will get some very useful travel information. And head to your local book store and browse through the Italy travel guides. Find one that works for you. (I personally like the DK Eyewitness travel guides.)

You'll have a wonderful time! Enjoy!

By the way, look at a map of Tuscany. It is not a single sight. It is a region. Florence is a city in Tuscany. You could take a day trip from Florence to Siena by bus and see some of the Tuscan countryside, or just take a bus to Fiesole, (Fee-ay-so-lay) which is in the hills above Florence.

And when booking flights online, the open jaw option is commonly called "multi-city"' which you check when you first enter data in the search box. It is NOT two one-way tickets, which would be very expensive. I suggest you start in Venice, then train to Florence, then train to Rome and fly home from there. Do day trips from those cities if you wish, although there is so much to see in them you may not get away. The Cinque Terre is pretty, but for this trip you don't really have time for it, I think.