Hank help! Or anyone else

[gaylenhazel]

Our cruise ends in Venice. I have 4 nights before flying out of Milan. I want to see Cinque Terre and Florence. Question for anyone.... should we ride the train to CT first or Florence (from Venice)? I was thinking of spending 2 nights in CT and 1 in Florence. Or should we do reverse?

[euro cruiser]

An important part of your thought process is how early your flight leaves from Milan and whether or not you'll need to spend the night prior there. I'm guessing that since you said you have four nights but only accounted for three, that this is your plan?

 

If you add up the hours on the train by routing, it looks like this:

 

Venice to Florence to Cinque Terre to Milan: 2 + 2.5 + 3.25 = 7.75.

 

Venice to Cinque Terre to Florence to Milan: 5 + 2.5 + 1.75 = 9.25.

 

So, to minimize your train time, you'd go to Florence first, then to Cinque Terre, then to Milan. Since the Cinque Terre to Milan leg is the longest, there's no way you could do it this way without staying in Milan the last night.

 

If you have a later flight from Milan (as in an early afternoon flight rather than a morning one), you might be able to squeeze the fourth night in Florence and use the second routing. There is a direct train from Florence to the airport in Milan, but the first one of the day doesn't leave Florence until 7 AM and arrives at Malpensa at 9:38.

[dln929]

One thing about the Milan airport is that it is ALWAYS very busy! Although it is customary to arrive two hours ahead of time for international flights, that's cutting it close in Milan. Add an extra half hour (preferably more, to tell you the truth) because you are going to be standing in lines that you will not believe.

[Hlitner]

The others have answered the question about routes, trains, etc. But your interesting choice will be where to stay in CT. Now that is a fun question for which we have no best answer since we have never spent nights in the CT area (have passed through several times on driving trips). We would probably opt for a B&B kind of place in Riomaggiore...based on what we heard from an American traveler who spent 1 week a year in that town and said it was perfect. But, you could probably find arguments to support each village. What a fun decision where there is probably no wrong answer.

 

Hank

[floridafolks]

Since you mentioned Milan- if you plan to spend the last night there and want to see The Last Supper, you might want to get tickets ahead of time. I tried to get tickets via internet, but my day in May was all sold out. I just contacted the hotel where we are staying and they were able to get us tickets to an English speaking time slot. (There is one in the am and one in the pm.) I mention this as when we were there years ago, we easily found tickets available, but they now limit the number of people and the time alloted for a visit. So in case you wanted to see that, I would not want you to be disapponted in not finding available tickets.

[floridafolks]

The others have answered the question about routes, trains, etc. But your interesting choice will be where to stay in CT. Now that is a fun question for which we have no best answer since we have never spent nights in the CT area (have passed through several times on driving trips). We would probably opt for a B&B kind of place in Riomaggiore...based on what we heard from an American traveler who spent 1 week a year in that town and said it was perfect. But, you could probably find arguments to support each village. What a fun decision where there is probably no wrong answer.

 

Hank

 

Hank, do you think it best to wait until in Italy to by train tickets? We are going from Rome to Milan. What are your thoughts on the Eurostar vs regional trains. I see that the regional trains take a lot longer and the Eurostar cost alot more. I guess that supports the saying "Time is money."

[dln929]

Here's some good info about Cinque Terre from a blog that I regularly follow. Enjoy! http://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/2008/10/cinque-terre.html

[iancal]

We spent four nights in a small private apartment in Riomaggiore. For us, it was a perfect location. We had quite a hike from the train station to our apt. and we were very happy that we packed so light.

 

I would not buy train tickets in advance unless you are travelling on a holiday...and we usually buy 2Cl tickets. Watch your luggage on the train!

[Hlitner]

Hank, do you think it best to wait until in Italy to by train tickets? We are going from Rome to Milan. What are your thoughts on the Eurostar vs regional trains. I see that the regional trains take a lot longer and the Eurostar cost alot more. I guess that supports the saying "Time is money."

 

Guess it depends on the value you put on your time, but the Eurostar, ICE and other fast trains are really a great way to travel and their A/C usually works fine. Regional trains are hit and miss and sometimes use "Italian" AC which means an open window. As to booking in advance, if you try to book from the USA you usually get pushed to the Raileurope site which adds a substantial extra fee to any ticket. Some have had luck bypassing this issue and booking direct with Trenitalia..but we have not tried this in a few years. We normally wait until we are in Europe and then book at the first opportunity if we are taking the high speed trains. For regional trains you normally do not need any kind of reservation.

 

Hank

[floridafolks]

Guess it depends on the value you put on your time, but the Eurostar, ICE and other fast trains are really a great way to travel and their A/C usually works fine. Regional trains are hit and miss and sometimes use "Italian" AC which means an open window. As to booking in advance, if you try to book from the USA you usually get pushed to the Raileurope site which adds a substantial extra fee to any ticket. Some have had luck bypassing this issue and booking direct with Trenitalia..but we have not tried this in a few years. We normally wait until we are in Europe and then book at the first opportunity if we are taking the high speed trains. For regional trains you normally do not need any kind of reservation.

 

Hank

In your experience, do you think that the Eurostar trains are less likely to be affected by strikes than regional trains?

We plan to take the train from Civitavecchia to Roma Termini for a one day stay before heading to Milan, Lake distict and Switzerland all via train. I guess we could buy the Eurostar ticket(Rome-Milan) in Civitavecchia while buying the ticket into Rome, right?

BTW a 2nd class Eurostar ticket rome-milan is $125 on raileurope and 91 Euro on trenitalia.com----seems to be about equivalent. I guess I can not see the extra fee. I won't even have to pay postage if I buy it when I buy the Swiss Pass.

[Hlitner]

Ahhh, you had to bring up the "S" word. As a general rule (and there are exceptions) most strikes (and especially ones that affect major train lines) are annouced in advance. Of course the alternative to using trains is simply renting a car (we personally prefer driving in Europe to trains). If you have a real concern you could reserve a rental car in advance and then cancel once you felt the chance of a strike was minimal. As to strike schedules, there are web sites that list the schedule but most are in Italian. If you have the Google Toolbar installed on your computer you can use its Translate feature to help read these sites. One place to look is at:

http://www.commissionegaranziasciopero.it/

As to buying tickets, you can purchase tickets for any European train at any train station in Europe. Many European travel agencies also sell tickets (they usually have signs in their windows). Your Raileurope price does look reasonable which makes me wonder if they are now offering equivalent fares. The last person we know who used RailEurope bought a TGV ticket from Paris to Avignon and was quite upset when he discovered that the fares at the Paris train station were substantially less. If things have improved we say bravo to RailEurope and we, ourselves, would take advantage of the convenience on some future trips.

 

We assume you are packing light enough so that you can handle your luggage in the train stations. As has been said, you want to keep a careful watch on your luggage at all times because luggage thieves are all too common.

 

Hank

[euro cruiser]

If there is a strike, pretty much all trains are included. There are exceptions, trains that are guaranteed to run no matter what, but those are not ones that a cruise ship passenger are likely to be using on a port stop.

[Hlitner]

If there is a strike, pretty much all trains are included. There are exceptions, trains that are guaranteed to run no matter what, but those are not ones that a cruise ship passenger are likely to be using on a port stop.

 

Euro, there are exceptions to the rule and we, unfortunately, happened upon one of those situations. We were staying near San Gimignano and decided to take the train into Florence for dinner one Saturday night (did not want to drive and have to deal with parking). So we drove to Certaldo (on the main line between Siena and Florence) to catch the train. We bought tickets in the machine and waited with lots of local Italians on the small platform. When the next train did not come we patiently waited another half hour for the following train which also did not come. We finally got in our car and left. Two days later we were at FCO and stopped in the Trenitalia ticket office to get a refund on our unused tickets (only a few Euros). The FCO ticket office manager explained that yes, there had been a 12 hour strike only on the regional linebetween Rome and Florence. Go figure! And no, they would not refund our money since they can only give on-the-spot refunds to Italian Nationals..or so they said.

 

Hank

[euro cruiser]

Euro, there are exceptions to the rule and we, unfortunately, happened upon one of those situations. We were staying near San Gimignano and decided to take the train into Florence for dinner one Saturday night (did not want to drive and have to deal with parking). So we drove to Certaldo (on the main line between Siena and Florence) to catch the train. We bought tickets in the machine and waited with lots of local Italians on the small platform. When the next train did not come we patiently waited another half hour for the following train which also did not come. We finally got in our car and left. Two days later we were at FCO and stopped in the Trenitalia ticket office to get a refund on our unused tickets (only a few Euros). The FCO ticket office manager explained that yes, there had been a 12 hour strike only on the regional linebetween Rome and Florence. Go figure! And no, they would not refund our money since they can only give on-the-spot refunds to Italian Nationals..or so they said.

That was sort of my point - if you get hit by a strike while on a port day, the odds of the exception to the rule working out in your favor are pretty small, unfortunately. Stuff happens, as they say, and a backup plan is always necessary for DIYers.

 

I had similar problem on my first trip to Italy. W'd taken the state train from Naples to Pompeii as I wasn't even aware there was a Circumvesuviana train to the ruins. After spending the morning at the ruins, we walked back to town (about a mile) to the train station and about halfway there we caught up with a parade, which we followed right to the station. They jumped down onto the tracks and proceeded to have a party ... someone eventually took pity on us standing on the platform and explained that the train wasn't going to be coming any time soon (as best they could, in Italian, to us who at the time spoke no Italian at all).

 

Between sign language, a dictionary and a smattering of each other's languages, they helped us understand that we could go back to the ruins and take the Circumvesuviana back to Naples, which we did. The strike lasted only a few hours - they were back to work for the evening rush hour - but it sure screwed us up.

[floridafolks]

That was sort of my point - if you get hit by a strike while on a port day, the odds of the exception to the rule working out in your favor are pretty small, unfortunately. Stuff happens, as they say, and a backup plan is always necessary for DIYers.

 

I had similar problem on my first trip to Italy. W'd taken the state train from Naples to Pompeii as I wasn't even aware there was a Circumvesuviana train to the ruins. After spending the morning at the ruins, we walked back to town (about a mile) to the train station and about halfway there we caught up with a parade, which we followed right to the station. They jumped down onto the tracks and proceeded to have a party ... someone eventually took pity on us standing on the platform and explained that the train wasn't going to be coming any time soon (as best they could, in Italian, to us who at the time spoke no Italian at all).

 

Between sign language, a dictionary and a smattering of each other's languages, they helped us understand that we could go back to the ruins and take the Circumvesuviana back to Naples, which we did. The strike lasted only a few hours - they were back to work for the evening rush hour - but it sure screwed us up.

Euro and Hank,

We too got caught in a strike trying to get to Venice from Treviso. Folks gave us directions(in italian of course) to get to the local bus, which was running. With a lot of hand pointing we found the bus and made it into Venice.

 

So-- I have taken Hank's wise suggestion and have a rental car reserved as a backup plan to get from Rome to Milan. We have done a lot of driving in Europe-one trip was from Sweden to Rome, but DH really would like to avoid driving in the big cities(Rome/Milan/Naples) anymore. Driving around Tuscany is one thing, driving in Rome and Milan is another!

[gaylenhazel]

Wow... thanks eveyone. I knew you would help me out.

 

Yes, we are staying in Milan the night before we leave. We have a 8:30 a.m. flight. Thanks for the heads up on the long lines at the airport!

 

I am taking the suggestion to go to Florence, CT, then Milan. I only hope I can get a hotel in CT. Many I have looked at are booked.

 

The trains will be our way of travel. My hubby does not want to rent a car. I think the trains will be an adventure. Yep, watch for thiefs. A friend of ours had a little girl stick her hand in his pocket looking for his wallet. Such a shame that the parents put kids out to do that.

 

We have tickets for the Last Supper. I booked a tour that includes the tickets. I also have read how fast they sell out. Now I need to arrange tickets for David in Florence.

 

We are seeing a lot in 12 days.... I better go exercise to get ready for all those excursions!

 

Thanks again you all!