"very handy if you feel you want to have the rail part of your trip all confirmed." - you can book on the Trenitalia website if that's important. It really depends on what trains you want whether that may be a problem. RailEurope and "lower priced tickets" don't go together.....

Trenitalia offers discounts the farther out you purchase. The breakdown is 7 days out, 15 days out, 30 days out, but the discount is up to a certain percentage. There's no guarantee of that maximum percentage off. I've been playing around w/ travel dates and it does make a difference, but usually no more than 5-10euros per person.

RailEurope doesn't sell the discounted tickets so you certainly won't get a bargain from them. They also charge a hefty mailing fee which is totally unnecessary since all you need is the e-mailed code, but of course they wouldn't do that because they couldn't make some more money off you.

After looking at Venice/Florence there are 8 fast train between 6:30am and 12:30 pm and no slow trains that wouldn't have a supplement until 1pm.>

i took a train last year around 10am from Rifredi station to Mestre station - IC train and shuttles on each end - took all told about 40 mins longer. That said Trenitalia is more and more changing IC trains over to ES trains - and i could not spot this link now on bahn.de.

mdmomof7, where did you get that information about Trenitalia? Is that a new discount structure? I have used Italian trans for years and was only aware of the Amica discount (20%) and only available in limited numbers on high speed trains and not on IC or regionals.

Yes, there is a new discount structure recently added:

http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...003f16f90aRCRD

The discounts are 15%, 30% and 60% so it can make a big difference, but most people can't get Trenitalia to accept their online purchase to do the advance purchases required for these discounts. Even booking in advance, these fares can be sold out as the Amica can. There's also a same day round trip discount (35%) through mid-June on the fast trains if you are daytripping.

We are travelling Rome - Amalfi, Amalfi - Florence, Florence -Saint Margherita Ligure, SML - Rome. We'll just bite the bullet and pay the reservation fees. Hopefully we'll have a wonderful time and it will be worth the extras!

Senga - There is no train Rome/Amalfi and for part of it where there is a train, you can't use your pass at all.

Bummer that the site doesn't accept an online purchase. I never clicked on purchase so I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

for part of it where there is a train, you can't use your pass at all.

The Naples-Sorrento train that is not covered costs all of about 3 euros, however. so you pass would cover nearly 100% of a Rome-Sorrento train - and the bus from Sorrento to Amalfi is about as cheap

And you can take a train from Rome to Salerno and then bus from there to Amalfi - negating the hassle of changing trains in Naples and riding the dumpy CircumVesuviana train at all.

PQ - I wasn't pointing out price, but advising senga there was no train all the way to Amalfi and the pass wouldn't be valid for a portion of it. The Circumvesuviana is no more dumpy than some of the slow trains you suggested riding earlier in this thread.

The Circumvesuviana is no more dumpy than some of the slow trains you suggested riding earlier in this>

In my experience of riding it several times the Circumvesuviana is dumpier than the regional trains i was talking about

Circumvesuviana is basically a metro and no metro is as nice as a regular train IME

and there have been crime warnings about the CircumVesuviana so watch your luggage

On one train i was on folks were openly shooting up in the back of one car and there were many 'seedy' folks riding.

Have you ridden regional trains like i was talking about above - like from Rome to Florence? On that train i had a whole compartment - yes compartment to myself with nice seats, etc. and was not a packed metro.

Indeed i would advise taking a mainline train to Salerno then taking the Amalfi Bus to amalfi - about the same time all told i'd think.

Well, we're back and had an absolutely fantastic trip.

We used our RailEurope pass for the following and I have noted the per ticket booking charge in brackets:
May 16th
- Rome-Salerno (5 euro ). We then paid 3 euro for the bus to Amalfi. The ticket was purchased at the "travel agency" and you open the bin under the bus and put your luggage in.
May 20th
We used our 3 day Amalfi bus pass for the trip from Amalfi to Salerno.
- Salerno-Naples (15 euro)
- Naples-Florence (20 euro)
May 23rd
- Regional train Florence to Pisa (no charge)
- Pisa-Santa Margherita Ligure (10 euro)
May 27th
- Regional train SML to Chiavari (no charge)
- Santa Margherita Ligure-Rome (10 euro)

All our hotels were within walking distance to the train station and after seeing the roads we were so glad we decided to use this mode of transportation. I think next time (and there will be a next time!) I'll check out the Trenitalia pricing more carefully since their costs include the booking fee but, all in all, we were happy with the experience.