The Trains
On our recent trip to Italy we traveled by between cities by
train, going from Rome to Naples, then by ferry around the Amalfi coast,
stopping for three days in Positano and then another ferry to Salerno where we
trucked our luggage 3 blocks to the train station and tried to figure out how
the system worked. There were two train companies with ticket offices in the
Salerno station. One was Trenitalia, the
government owned system and the other was Italo Treno a supposedly private
company. We started in the Italo-treno
office but could not get a good schedule to get to Venice by nightfall where we
had an Airbnb room waiting for us. We
ended up going to the Trenitalia station, at first standing in a long,
non-moving line, until a woman asked us if we needed help. She took us into a private office and
arranged our trip. I am not sure why we
were treated differently but it was a big help and we got our tickets on a good
schedule, although not cheap. We got off
the water bus in Venice about dark and our host met us to take us to our
apartment.
We only stayed one night in Venice, eating at a small Osteria
in a medieval alleyway late at night and the next day having breakfast in Saint
Mark’s square. When we left, we took the
water bus back to the train station and took our place in a long line again to
get tickets. Again, the line was hardly
moving, but I had searched online the previous night to find the train we
wanted to take, including the price, departure time, and train number. So I left Pam in line and went around to one
of the ticket machines where I found it was easy to buy the tickets I wanted
for the train I wanted, although only first class was still available. The ticket machine easily switched to English
and took my credit card, printing out our two first class tickets. Then all we had to do was watch for the track
number on the board, check our coach and seat numbers and be ready to get on
board at the right place. Our first
train ride from Rome to Naples we had randomly boarded and sat unknowingly in
first class with coach tickets. We were
summarily asked to leave and go to our appropriate coach and class. Once we had learned the ropes the trains were a lot easier
to use.
My advice on using the trains in Italy: Know which train company and line you are going to use, there
are different companies and some lines stop at every stop, and others go city
center to city center. Know ahead of
time the train you want and get your tickets early, they do sell out. Find the right track on the board, find your
car, usually there are numbers on the track so you know where to stand when the
train comes in, your seat number seems to matter, but most people are flexible
so you can move to sit next to your traveling companions. The machine bought tickets did not always
print out with proximate seats. On one trip, a woman realized that she had got on the wrong train and was
in tears. She probably had spent a good
amount of money on the ticket and would miss whatever appointment she had had,
and would have to spend the day returning and re-buying tickets to get to her
original destination. This was always my
fear in the early confusion we had finding our way.
The Trenitalia trips were pleasant enough. We found ourselves rocketing through the
Italian countryside. As we moved south
the rolling hills and mountains got drier and drier. There are forests, farms and fields in
Tuscany, (Just like the Illinois Central), more farms, less forests and vegetation on the mountainsides south of
Rome. The trains are air
conditioned. Italians do not use air
conditioning as much as Americans do.
One bookstore at the train station was oppressively hot and miserable to
be in. When there was AC it was
generally turned lower than at home.
The seats on the trains were comfortable although economy class could
get crowded. First class had leather
seats, more room and an attendant served drinks and snacks from a mobile
cart. The train information along with
news and weather was displayed on Monitors at intervals along each car. The speed of the train was usually about 240
kilometers per hour. But it did not feel
that we were going that fast. While we
were in Florence, there was a bad train crash in the south, but it was not
Trenitalia.
We did try to take the Circumvesuvio railroad from Naples to
Sorrento but the train was so hot and crowded that we had to get off,
especially after people kept jamming into the already overloaded car. We forfeited our tickets but they were cheap
enough and dragged our luggage onto the Metro to get to the waterfront where we
found the ferries.
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