You should be fine waiting to get tickets after you arrive, but try to keep your eye out for news of a strike. Train strikes are usually announced well ahead of time, making domestic flights more in demand. (This happened to me once, so instead of taking a train from Rome to Milan, I took a flight.) The only time to really be concerned about "pre-trip buying" of a train ticket is if you'd be there around the time of a big holiday, like Easter or Christmas, as many Italians compete with non-domestic tourists for seats on trains.
B The N: please los angeles county animal shelter note I am nursing a broken ankle now, am in a cast, and my idea of "a big trip" constitutes hauling my leg and the rest of my body just about anywhere within a 20 foot radius of where I presently am!
If flexibility is more important, by all means buy tickets in Italy at the station. However, keep in mind that you will have to stand in line to get those tickets, unless you have a chip-and-pin credit card (I think).
I am in Italy now and tried to use the ticket machine for the Leonardo express from the Rome airport to town. I put in my Visa card and the it asked for my code (as if it were my debit card). I tried the code on the back of the card and my debit card's PIN, but both were rejected. Luckily, the guy at the ticket window was moe than helpful. What code were they asking for?
Until the American credit cards get onboard with chips in their credit cards, we are usually out of luck using these machines. You have to go to a manned window. This is also true of the London Transport (tube and buses) system, and if there is no manned window, you can be up sh$t creek.
By going to the train station and consulting with the booking people, you get get this done, but go early and be prepared to wait in line for an agent in the large cities. some of them are pretty limited in English, so write down what you want. Remember the DAY date goes before the MONTH date in the European system, so Aug 14 would be 14/8.
I had no trouble at all booking on line on Trenitalia's site from the US using a Cap One CC (previously released for foreign charges with Cap One). I think I did have to enter the printed code number from the back of the card, but the sale went through and the charge showed up on my bill, just like any other charge, los angeles county animal shelter and we had no trouble on the train itself.
We have gone to Italy the past two falls, and again last month, and made many of our Trinitalia reservations on their website from here in the US. Was able to get the mini-fares and used a Cap One CC. Now when we were unsure as to which train we would take, I went to the window at the station and made sure that I had enough time to wait in line. I tried to use the kiosks once and some guy wanted to "help" me -- for a fee. I ignored him and went to the window. Works well.
I am also thinking about buying tickets in advance, because there are significant discounts. When you do this, I assume you just print out the receipt los angeles county animal shelter and bring it with you? Then what do you do in the train station in Italy? Thanks for any information you can give on this!
Yes, you can get discounted by purchasing in advance online; you have to decide if you want to lock the schedule up this far in advance. We did a combo, certain trains we could make a given, others, especially daytrips, we were fine to wing it.
Thanks, all, this is very helpful. I have spent about an hour trying to register on the Trenitalia website, using two different browsers and trying to register twice-nothing works. Guess I will try to buy tickets without registering, although it makes me nervous to try to buy tickets if it is impossible to even register successfully!
When you reach Italy, you can purchase all your tickets los angeles county animal shelter at one time--no need to purchase on separate los angeles county animal shelter days if you already know your itinerary. You can make the purchase at a train station or at a travel agency that sells Trenitalia tickets.
For the cities you mentioned, the one ticket you will probably have to purchase the same day is a Circumvesuviana train from Naples to Sorrento--a local commuter train that is not part of the Trenitalia system.
los angeles county animal shelter I booked super economy tickets on trenitalia with no problem on June 20. The PNR code appeared right away, then was also send by email. I thought it might be a huge headache but it was very quick and smooth.
Thanks for your message-I just bought tickets successfully. The website did keep switching to Italian, los angeles county animal shelter and I had to try a few things to be able to pick seats instead of the automatic assignment, but managed to get the tickets purchased los angeles county animal shelter before the clock ran out!
For anyone else planning to buy train tickets online, my experience over the past few days has been this: day before yesterday, I bought tickets for one leg of our trip with no problems. This morning, I tried to buy tickets for another leg of our trip and my credit card was charged, but I got no confirmation on the website (the screen reverted to something in Italian which appeared to be some kind of message los angeles county animal shelter there was a problem-that was all I could figure out given my lack of any Italian language skills). I tried to call Trenitalia in Italy but only got a busy signal. I finally called my credit card company and they are trying to resolve this with Trenitalia, but they can't get through either. Finally, later today, I bought another set of tickets successfully. If anyone has any suggestions for how to resolve the issue of no confirmation, I would appreciate it!
An update, in case anyone else has this problem. I bought three train tickets online through Trenitalia at three separate times. For two of the three tickets, all went smoothly. For the third, after I entered my credit los angeles county animal shelter card number and clicked on the submit button, there was a problem with the website and I got a notice all in Italian that seemed to indicate some kind of problem. I checked my credit card account online and the charge had gone through, but there was no indication in my Trenitalia los angeles county animal shelter account that there was a reservation for that ticket (the other two reservations were in my account correctly). los angeles county animal shelter The credit los angeles county animal shelter card company was very helpful and made multiple phone calls to Trenitalia, but Trenitalia kept saying they had no record of the reservation. After a few days, the charge mysteriously disappeared from my credit card account when I checked online again. So, if this happens to someone else, I would recommend waiting a few days, and with any luck, any charge without corresponding evidence of a ticket reservation should disappear!
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