Trenitalia

Train was the main transportation we relied on to travel around Italy. And although I was quite concern at the efficiency of the train system there, my worries were put to a rest when I discovered the Trenitalia website.You can actually plan all your connection via the website. I would suggest you register before booking your tickets. From the website you can view destination, time, and cost of your tickets, select seats and pay for your tickets. The cost of the train depends on type of train, duration, and class. Me being the budget traveler always pick the cheapest alternative cause I don't have a problem taking long train rides. IN fact, I take it as a luxury to stare out from the train window and waste time away. And so I booked a total of 5 connecting trains for our trip:

• 20131103_Milan2Monterosso - 38Euro for 2 adults - 3 hours
• 20131105_Monterosso2Milan - 18Euro for 2 adults - 3 hours
• 20131105_Milan2Venice - 38Euro for 2 adults - 2.5 hours
• 20131109_Venice2Rom - 64Euro for 2 adults - overnight 6.5 hours
• 20131114_Rome2Milan - 18Euro for 2 adults - 7 hours.

 

Milano Centrale Station was beautiful! Lots of shops and food if you're waiting for your train. It can get crowded during peak traveling hours, but on the whole, it was fine. The Dolce & Gabbana poster all around it make it feel kinda high fashion and classy. I spend many hours looking at very stylish people walking pass when my train to Venice was delayed by almost 2 hours! Milan has got the most well dressed people in Italy!

That was the only delay we encountered during our experience with Trenitalia. They gave us a bag of cookies, bread, juice and water as compensation though, which I thought was a nice touch. And get this, you don't really need to print out your tickets to board the train. All you have to do is have a copy on your mobile phone, and show it to the conductor when they come checking.

What do I do when I'm on a long train ride? I write my journal, listen to music, stare out at the lovely scenarios, day dream and contemplate on life.

Some warning when taking the train in Italy. Always know when  your stop is coming up as you have only a few minutes to get on or off. If you miss that window, you're pretty much screwed. For local train, sometimes the announcement is only in Italian. If you're traveling to Cinque Terre, make sure you're at the middle of the train when you're about to alight. We found out with much frustration that the train doors don't open on the front or back at those stations due to shorter platforms. We missed a total of two stops and panic like hell. Luckily Cinque Terre is a national park, and at the main station, you can alight and get a day pass (which you need to stay in Cinque Terre anyway), and back track back to where you want to.

Worst experience on the train? I have two. One is when we can't get the train doors to open (yes you have to open them yourself in smaller stations) and have to miss two stations. We panicked, but there's nothing much you can do really. Second is on our overnight train ride from Venice to Rome, we shared a small cabin which can sit 6 people with 1 italian and 3 very big size Indian. They snored through out the night, and when the train stopped at the station and the ventilation went off, the smell was pretty unbearable.

Best experience I also have two. One was on our ride back from Rome to Milan. Although you can book your seat, there really isn't a seat plan to show you where the number correspond to which seat. So our seats were apart. But each time a passenger who was sitting next to me show up and saw my husband there, they always let us sit together. A total of 3 passenger did that automatically without us ever asking them to. I thought that was rather understanding of them. Second is at Venice Santa Lucia station where we arrived at 8pm and had to wait 4 hours for our midnight train. This Italian guy took one look at my husband and ask if we were from Singapore. That started a 4 hour conversation via Google Translator for us and him with his dad. Apparently they just came back from a contract work in Singapore during carpentry work on a ship. They couldn't speak English well, and we can't speak Italian that great either. So out comes the mobile phone, and massive typing to converse with each other.

So for me, I would say train in Italy is a thumbs up! It's not as punctual as what you might find in Japan, but rather, it is more easy going and relax.

 Ref:
Trenitalia
Dolce & Gabbana
Cinque Terre Card
Google Translator
Milano Centrale Website
Milano Centrale Station