Hi ! we are arriving in Rome in the early morning and need to get to Florence. We don't want to rent a car in Rome since we won't need it until we leave Florence. What's the best way to get to Florence from Rome? I tried looking at the train schedule on line, but I am confused! any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks! Jasmine
Note, when a poster mentioned catching the train from Rome's Fiumicino Airport to Rome's "main train station" (the station from which one would catch another train to Florence), she was referring to Stazione Termini. (I bring this up because you'll see Roma Termini on the train timetable.)
As someone who has not been to Italy myself, I wish you luck in choosing between the two options recommended in the aforementioned thread, catching the train from Rome to Florence or catching a connecting flight from Rome to Florence. Arguments that seemed to me to be equally inviting were made for both suggestions.
Here's a third option to confuse you further, but I think it would only work if you hadn't reserved (and especially paid for) your flight to Rome yet. That option is to cut Rome out of the picture and fly to Florence. If you're flying from the U.S., that will mean a change of planes somewhere in Europe (but then you were going to have to connect to another flight or to a train in Rome anyway).
It was from this discussion board that I heard that Florence's airport was smaller and more user friendly than Rome's. For some of the people who post here, Florence is a favourite entry point into, and departure point from, Italy.
If you've already paid for your flight to Rome, the train sounds like your best option. The consolation is that the people who've caught the train from Rome to Florence in a jet lagged state say it's fine.
Getting from the airport in Rome to Florence is fairly painless. Take the train (Leonardo Express) from the airport to Termini station in Rome; from there take the train to Florence.
The Leonardo Express runs every 1/2 hour or so; it costs 8,80 Euro. You can buy tickets at the machines located near the track where it leaves from. (You may want to search the Slowtalk board for other info; I recall someone writing that buying tickets at the nearby newstand is his preference.)
The trains from Roma-Firenze run very frequently; again, you can purchase tickets at the machines located at Termini, with cash or credit card.
Maureen
Posts: 4724 | Location: Boston or Florence | Registered: 07 July 2001
As I keep on repeating -- the trick is a valuable one, in time, money, and convenience: from the airport, do NOT take the Rome train (that almost everyone else will be getting on), but take the train on the other platform, to ORTE and change at Orte. Remember, you're going to Florence, not Rome.
The station in Rome is a madhouse, the train from the airport in to Rome is specially priced -- exorbitantly high -- and about 1/3 of the passengers will be standing.
The train to Orte is more modern, always has seats, bypasses Rome altogether so is faster, costs normal prices, and the Orte train station is small, uncrowded, and with some fresh air (yet under a roof if bad weather).
It is no more complicated to take the Orte train than the Rome train. You still have to buy your ticket. Now if you were just going into Rome, you'd buy it at the machines; but since you're going to Florence, you're buying your ticket all the way thru to Florence, which you cannot do from the machines. You must do it from the train station window (near the newstand, but no, not in the newstand). So: at that window, instead of asking "Firenze per Roma", you ask "Firenze PER ORTE".
Thank you, all of you for the help. Regretfully, we couldn't get a cheap ticket to Florence. I ended up with a price of 519.00 from NYC. Does that seem high to you for late March? Whatever happened to all those great winter deals we used to get? I remember a few years ago flying to Paris for 215 ! sigh...
<Jasmine>
Posted
Bill, I forgot to ask you, what is the price for a ticket to Florence? I don't have any idea of the cost and can't seem to find it on the net. thanks
Jasmine, it's to be expected that flights into the smaller airports would be much higher, and much cheaper into Rome: at $519 my guess is you did quite well, all the more so that doesn't your trip include Easter in Italy? which is a "bump" of high-season in the midst of the otherwise shoulder.
Train costs in 2004 I'm not as up on, but Rome to Florence is 316 kilometers, and (running from a 1998 schedule, have no 2003 and can't find my 2000) I get for that distance:
basic regular fare: 42000 lire
supplement for the InterCity (IC): 22000
total Eurostar price: 74500
Translated into euros and allowing for roughly 25% inflation, and the dollar at its current rate of 1 euro = $1.20, I'll give you these fairly good estimates, per person of course, good enough for planning by:
if you go by the "milk-run" no frills non-express train (and to Orte at least, it's considered milk-run, although it's fast), the basic regular fare is about $33
if your whole trip is on an IC, add supplement of $17, making it $50 total
if you were to take a EuroStar from the airport to Florence (which you can't do), it would be $58
You are most likely to wind up with an IC from Orte, which is about halfway, so put it all together and my estimate is, per person, $42.
Bill
[This message was edited by Bill Thayer on 02 December 2003 at 12:33 PM.]
Speak of which, for my own planning, if any of you (lucky enough to be) living in Italy have the following 2003 info easily at hand, I'd be very grateful if you could post it:
I forgot about your "trick'! I need to try it the next time I fly into Rome. I'm usually so mentally deadened by the flight I just do whatever I've done in the past, that which requires the least amount of actual processing new info.
Jasmine-
I was finishing unpacking from my last trips this morning , in preparation for my next trip, and came across several ticket stubs: 1 for the Eurostar Roma-Firenze, which has a price of 29,44Euro for a 2nd class seat; and the other for a 2nd class seat Firenze-Orte, on an IC train, for 20,46Euro. The Rome ticket was from May, the Orte ticket from Sept. from what Bill says, the ticket from Fiumicino-Orte seems to be much less than the 8,80 Fiumicino-Termini Leonardo Express.
Remember to stamp your tickets (convalida) prior to boarding the train in the little machine at the platform.
Maureen
Posts: 4724 | Location: Boston or Florence | Registered: 07 July 2001
Further to your discussions about the train fare between Fiumicino and Firenze, here is Rick Steves' 2003 European Railpasses Time and Cost Map . This gives a rough idea of the 2003 fare and the time it takes to travel from one major European centre to another.
This map sticks to general numbers, and doesn't distinguish amongst InterCity, Eurostar and all the other choices of trains. The only distinction it makes is between 1st class fare and 2nd class fare.
Anyway, Bill, the Rick Steves 2003 map shows Rome-Florence train costing US$45 for 1st class and US$30 for 2nd class, which is in the same ballpark as your numbers. Close enough for rough planning purposes at least.
I was busy typing my message to Jasmine and Bill while you posted your message, so I didn't see what you'd said when I clicked my post button. I defer to the numbers on your ticket stubs.
Guessing intuitively, I thought "abbonamento mensile " might be a lost mind. Based on the context, however, that didn't sound right, so I looked it up in an online dictionary. I found that
abbonamento = subscription
and
mensilmente = monthly
So, I take it "abbonamento mensile" is a monthly pass.
Judy, I much prefer your version; and in fact the Mindless Pass is just that, like all these other passes: you just climb onboard, no need, except the first use of it, for the "convalidare" (stamping your ticket) which after years of travel in Italy I am still not used to.
The monthly pass is for a specific pair of endpoints, printed on the pass; but it is tailor-made to you: you can pick any pair of points you want (in 1997 and 1998, mine were Spello and S. Maria delle Mole, my skating rink outside Rome), and although you may buy one at any time, you pick the first day of use by ... stamping it; at the station as you board your train. You can buy any pass anywhere, including off the line: so a pass from Venice to Verona can be bought in Figline Valdarno if you feel like it; which is very useful, since if you happen to be near some tiny train station -- as we tourists often are -- you might as well do your pass there in three minutes rather than wait in line in a big city to do it.
In my experience, it pays for itself in 8 uses, at least for Umbria to Rome; if you travel a lot, you do well by it even without staying a month. Notice in passing that this still qualifies, I think, as Slow Travel, if your pass covers only 100km or so, it's not like crisscrossing the whole country every other day.
Careful though; if you're doing frequent round trips, you must have a pass for each direction. On the other hand, nothing forces you to go the whole route each time: so that Spello-Rome pass also let me get off in Spoleto or Terni or Orte etc. This is ideal if you use the rail line as a sort of "backbone" to your visit of an area, as I do.
quote:Originally posted by Bill Thayer: The monthly pass is for a specific pair of endpoints, printed on the pass; but it is tailor-made to you: you can pick any pair of points you want (in 1997 and 1998, mine were Spello and S. Maria delle Mole, my skating rink outside Rome), and although you may buy one at any time, you pick the first day of use by ... stamping it; at the station as you board your train.
Allowing the passenger to define his/her month, i.e., not confining it to the calendar month from the 1st to the 30th, is a most user-friendly feature, I must say. Hats off to the Italian rail system for that.
quote:Originally posted by Ann: Judy, I personally find the http://www.trenitalia.com/home/en/index.htm site much more helpful than Rick's site for travel within Italy -- a lot more info.
Ann, I totally agree. I frequently consult Trenitalia to find out arrival and departure times.
My problem with Trenitalia was that, until now, I hadn't figured out how to find out fares from their website. In the case of this thread, I was trying to help Jasmine find out the fare from Rome to Florence. Since I didn't know I could get that information from Trenitalia's website, I searched for other sources.
Only a few minutes ago I discovered that, by clicking on the red triangle to the left of a given train journey on Trenitalia's site, one reaches another screen that shows the fares. A sample journey from Roma Termini to Firenze S. M. Novella on the ES service, for example, costs EUR 42,35 or EUR 29,44. It doesn't seem to say so anywhere on the screen, but I'm surmising that the higher figure refers to the 1st class fare and the lower figure to the 2nd class fare.
The significance of the red triangle seems obvious, now that I've stumbled on it. I'm sure glad to know it.
Just want to say, our first trip to Italy, we had booked a flight from Rome (our arrival point) to Florence. Well, the 9 hour delay made that flight impossible, and Alitalia could not give us any promise of making another flight within 24 hours
So some small not brain dead part of me remembered reading about how nice the trains were in Italy..and we took the train.Dragged the luggage to the train to Termini, found the ticket office, missed the first train (severe lack of Italian ), got another one 1/2 hour later and .. it was wonderful! My first look at Italy was Tuscany flying past as we ate a wonderful lunch.
On the other hand, we did use the booked flight back to Rome, and while it was fine, it took longer, cost more and was no where near as scenic! We have now "trained" from Zurich to Umbria with many stops in between and definitely recommend it!
Posts: 605 | Location: Rehoboth, MA USA | Registered: 30 August 2003
Topic Closed
, in preparation for my next trip, and came across several ticket stubs: 1 for the Eurostar Roma-Firenze, which has a price of 29,44Euro for a 2nd class seat; and the other for a 2nd class seat Firenze-Orte, on an IC train, for 20,46Euro. The Rome ticket was from May, the Orte ticket from Sept. from what Bill says, the ticket from Fiumicino-Orte seems to be much less than the 8,80 Fiumicino-Termini Leonardo Express.
