massimop

LALucia,

You need to be aware if you haven't already bought a ticket that even on a Sunday evening in July, trains between Bologna & Tuscany can get crowded. Not only do you have Italians returning from a weekend or Sunday at the beach with friends who will be looking to take those last trains into Tuscany, but you also have a lot of tourists heading down from Verona and Venice heading for Florence and yet others looking to get to Lucca to spend the night or have dinner.

In a different busy tourist season I once spent several hours standing on a regional train on that train line because I & my friend couldn't find seats, and we finally just gave up trying to manoeuvre our luggage through the luggage-choked aisles of the cars.

bvlenci

<i> I assume kybourbon is referring to the fact that if you buy tickets out of machines in train station for regional trains that they are only valid for the train you choose. The little voice in the box tells you that. </i>

I've bought regional tickets from the machines that appeared, according to the screen, to be for a certain time window, but the ticket itself made no reference to the time of day, just stating the the ticket had to be used on the date indicated. I haven't seen any regional ticket, ever, that was just for a specific train.

massimop

Well, people have bought tickets that have the time window on them and the machine instructed them that the tickets were only valid for the specified train. I've also bought tickets from people at ticket windows that were for specific regional trains, and the was printed right on the ticket. So much variety in Italy and travel experiences. So important to remember one's own experiences are a very small database, and be grateful for social media which can add to a traveler's knowledge by sharing different experiences that might save them a huge amount of trouble if they only listened to one person who thought their experience was everything.

LALucia

Thank you all - I'm going to go through all of these answers with my friend and try to figure out our best option. Massimop, I have to say booking the later train and possibly having time to grab something to eat sounds very appealing! I guess the only downside would be that if for some reason we miss our connection in Firenze, we'll miss the last train to Lucca.

Hopefully we'll get seats on both trains - I don't relish the thought of standing. But we're pretty hardy travelers. And we will have been sitting on an airplane for a very long time! (Trying to look at the bright side.)

Andrew

Personally, my first priority would be getting to Lucca as early as possible rather than stopping to eat. I've grabbed food to eat on the train many times - sure, sometimes it's fast food, but if that means I get to my hotel an hour earlier, so be it, especially if I have a week of meals to enjoy in Italy.

You may well wind up standing on the regional trains - I have had to more than once. You'd have a reserved seat on the Frecciarossa train to Florence, but that's only about a 30 min ride out of 2+ hours on trains. You may still have to stand for an hour to get to Lucca. I guess I'm just frugal and wouldn't pay a lot more just to guarantee a seat for part of the journey, especially after sitting for many long hours on an international flight. And I'd hate to lock in that 7:25 Frecciarossa train only to arrive early enough after all to get the 6:09 and get into Lucca an hour earlier. But of course, it's totally your call - as long as you understand the parameters, you can certainly choose based on your own preferences.

LALucia

Yes, I think we probably have as much information as we can have, thanks to all of you. As it always is with travel, there are some things you can't plan for, unknowns that will just remain unknown, no matter how much you prepare. And for me, that's part of what makes travel fun.

A few years ago I couldn't find my tour group at a London tube station and I missed the train that they were getting on. I was upset at first, but I took off on my own and ended up having a very unusual and unforgettable adventure that day. I know it doesn't always end well when things go wrong, but sometimes it does!

LALucia

I'm back from Italy, and I just wanted to thank everyone for all the great info about trains! My friend and I made it from Bologna to Lucca on the regional trains with no problems. Our plane arrived a little early, and we just took a cab to the train station and bought our tickets there. By my second week in Italy I felt like an old pro! The Trenit app is wonderful - I even used it to help out a couple of Italians who had questions about the schedule!