Italy by train, how to buy train tickets?
When you travel to Italy try to take a train to get yourself from one location to another. The trains are very comfortable, even the local ones and the scenery is beautiful.
If you do travel by train in Italy and use the intercity trains it is wise to buy your tickets as soon as possible. For all trains that connect the tourist cities with each other have assigned seating. And the affordable economy class is the first one to be sold out.
I travelled with Smart Economy and bought my tickets at a machine who also has an English menu
To buy your ticket from a ticket booth is actually pretty simple. You find them all over the train station and if you can’t work it out for yourself there is plenty of assistance. make sure you deal with train staff only and not some random person offering help, for you have to pay them for simple things like showing you the machine, explaining the menu and watching you use your ATM card.
But it is very easy, on the touch screen of the train company of your choice
- choose your language (Italian or English)
- choose your departure station
- choose your destination
- choose an estimated time you prefer to travel
The machine will greet you in your chosen language and will find your tickets at different price categories around the chosen departure time.
When you decide which time and which price you also have the opportunity to choose a window seat.
So when in Rome f.e. you can buy all your tickets up front, for every departure station
I decided to travel with Italo, they are more affordable than Trenitalia. Make sure you look for the Italo booths among the hundreds of available Trenitalia booths. usually, they are located in or near the Italo ticket office at the end of the station.
These Intercity trains are very comfortable. you can compare them with ICE and Thalys and other high-speed trains. The seats are situated 2 by 2 with the aisle in the middle.
All trains have toilets on board and vending machines and since it is Italy, the country of coffee, there are coffee machines as well. Prices are reasonable. Some trains offer catering as well, there is a chart announced that sells sandwiches, coffee drinks and sweet pastry.
A few tips:
- There are also regional trains, more ordinary without seat numbers and they only travel short trips and make a lot of stops
- You can only enter the platform through a security gate with a valid ticket.
- Pay attention to the announcements, sometimes trains change platforms.
- Carriage numbers, which you can find on your printed ticket, are announced on the platforms signage, to help fast boarding and easy access to your seat.
- If the train is at and endstation the train doors stay closed until the cleaning crew is ready
- There is plenty of room for large luggage either above your head in the luggage racks or on the balconies of the train
- Do not buy a train ticket for international trains in the ticket machine, do visit the ticket office, they have more favourable prices and better deals than the machines, price differences can be as much as 100 euro per ticket.
I loved doing Italy by train, since I was there during winter and coming from the Philippines, I loved the temperature in the trains, and the chairs were so comfortable. Add to that the views, a one-hour train ride passes like a minute.
Trains depart almost every half hour to hour to and from every destination. On the signs in the stations the arrival time, platform and departure time are announced as soon as the train is approaching the station.
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