# Italian Train Summer Schedules



## fluke (Mar 19, 2013)

Does anyone have any experience using Trenitalia for train service?  I am trying to get tickets for travel this late spring/early summer, but it appears they have only released the tickets/timetables until June 8th. Anyone have any idea when they will release the later dates on their website?  Anyone with past experience?


----------



## Ken555 (Mar 19, 2013)

Yes, just be flexible. We wanted to buy the tickets in advance like you, but they didn't have them in time so we just bought while in Italy. No worries, no problem, everything went great. I did buy most of them online, though (some I bought using the bahn.de site and I think one ticket our concierge at the hotel handled (no surcharge) for us).


----------



## Carolinian (Mar 19, 2013)

I regularly buy the _Cook's European Timetables_ and find that most train service in Europe runs on the same schedule year round.  There are some exceptions, but those usually relate to seasonal destinations.  Cooks is published monthly in a printed paperbound book format, and I usually buy it a couple of times a year.

The best place to find the timetable online is at www.raileurope.com , but I have found that sometimes they do not list all of the trains between two points.  I would NOT buy tickets from them, as their point to point tickets are often priced higher, sometimes dramatically higher, than what they cost at the station.

As to buying tickets from TrenItalia while in the US, I did that many years ago one time on my very first trip to Italy.  Their ticket prices were lower than RailEurope, and were the same as they cost at the station in Italy.  However, they did add a service charge to each segment that did make them cost more, and they insisted on also charging for a seat reservation even on trains that did not require a reservation.  I bought tickets for legs in Slovenia and Croatia as well, and on those they did charge a markup on the ticket price itself, and they charged for reservations on one train that was unreserved (!) and on another where nobody at the local railroad knew of the seat reservation and their system showed someone else in the seat listed on my seat reservation from TrenItalia,  Since then, I have always just bought tickets at the station in Italy and that has worked fine.


----------



## fluke (Mar 19, 2013)

Thanks for the replies.  I have already booked one transfer on Trenitalia.com on June 8 but cannot book past that.  So I guess I will just wait until availability opens up. Or if need be it seems it should not be a problem picking up tickets in the station.


----------



## Carolinian (Mar 20, 2013)

The German and Austrian railroad sites also have schedule information for other European countries, but the downside is that you sometimes have to know the German spelling of the city you are looking for.  If you look up Bucharest, for example you will not find it on either site - you have to look for Bukarest.


----------



## abbekit (Mar 21, 2013)

We used the new private train service Italo http://www.italotreno.it/en/Pages/default.aspx

Found it to be far superior to the the government owned Trenitalia.  Italo has high speed, brand new trains, comfortable seating, clean modern pod type restrooms.  And nice waiting rooms at the stations with free wifi.  We booked in advance and got lower prices than Trenitalia for the same routes.  

Keep in mind that Italo only runs the major routes, you can't use them for travel in between the small towns.  We used them for our connection from Milan to Florence, then from Florence to Venice a couple of weeks ago..When we had to use Trenitalia for our day trip from Florence to Lucca we were disappointed in the trains (as compared to the new clean high speed trains).  The old government trains were not well kept, and most of the restrooms were broken and unusable, had to walk 3-4 cars up just to use a working toilet.  But their frequent schedules for the smaller towns was great so it is necessary to use both systems if you want to see the country via train.


----------



## Carolinian (Mar 21, 2013)

I have found the government railroad, Trenitalia's high speed express trains to be modern and clean, but like most countries, the local services are not up to the same standard.




abbekit said:


> We used the new private train service Italo http://www.italotreno.it/en/Pages/default.aspx
> 
> Found it to be far superior to the the government owned Trenitalia.  Italo has high speed, brand new trains, comfortable seating, clean modern pod type restrooms.  And nice waiting rooms at the stations with free wifi.  We booked in advance and got lower prices than Trenitalia for the same routes.
> 
> Keep in mind that Italo only runs the major routes, you can't use them for travel in between the small towns.  We used them for our connection from Milan to Florence, then from Florence to Venice a couple of weeks ago..When we had to use Trenitalia for our day trip from Florence to Lucca we were disappointed in the trains (as compared to the new clean high speed trains).  The old government trains were not well kept, and most of the restrooms were broken and unusable, had to walk 3-4 cars up just to use a working toilet.  But their frequent schedules for the smaller towns was great so it is necessary to use both systems if you want to see the country via train.


----------



## fluke (Apr 28, 2013)

For future reference of anyone in the sames situation the Summer train schedules(dates after June 8th) in Italy are now available - was not available at least 2 weeks ago.  Able to book my mid june dates.

Also note that Italo does not allow bookings or release schedules until Trenitalia does (or at the same time), makes sense since they are all on the same tracks.


----------

