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We're in the process of booking accomodation and flights for a family holiday in northern Italy this summer. Having never been before I'm wondering whether to hire a car to give us more flexibility or whether to use public transport. I've driven in France a couple of times and survived but I'm probably leaning more towards letting the train take the strain these days.
Train travel between cities in Italy is in my experience reliable, efficient and remarkably inexpensive compared to the UK. Buses and trams in the northern cities similarly good value. Getting to more remote destinations might be more challenging.
We did a month in Italy a couple of years ago travelling totally by train. If you are interested in visiting just cities it works brilliantly. But if you want to go to rural locations you’ll need a car.
As @jimw says public transport very good and rail travel is remarkably cheap. IF you're catching a bus at a terminus and it appears that there are too many passengers for the vehicle another may well be laid on immediately. Actual staff experience in Puglia to Bari airport where 2 coaches were summoned by telephone to move people!
Where are you going? I was surprised how good the trains we took were, but if you are doing anything other than the bigger towns and cities, it will be a struggle or impossible - for example, we drove from Lugano across the Trento region into the Dolomites, and that would require dropping south by train.
We hired a car from Milan Malpensa, wasn't a problem getting out and away, and driving standards on the autostrada are probably no worse than here (because our standards have fallen). Couple of hairy moments in the high Dolomites, but nothing too bad.
Where are you going? I was surprised how good the trains we took were, but if you are doing anything other than the bigger towns and cities, it will be a struggle or impossible - for example, we drove from Lugano across the Trento region into the Dolomites, and that would require dropping south by train.
We hired a car from Milan Malpensa, wasn't a problem getting out and away, and driving standards on the autostrada are probably no worse than here (because our standards have fallen). Couple of hairy moments in the high Dolomites, but nothing too bad.
We stayed in viareggio last year, went to pisa, Luca, Florence and Cinque terre all by train, cheap and reliable
driving standards on the autostrada are probably no worse than here
In the north the Italians generally drive reasonably well, but the further south you go the crazier it gets. By the time we got south of Naples the only cars we saw without dents or worse, were new ones.
We hired cars in Sicily and Sardinia a few years ago - Sardinia was pretty chill but Sicily was whack, proper no-quarter-given kind of thing. Put your head in the same space and it's ok once you've done a few miles, bit scary until then! Been awhile since we did trains but they were really good, great value, quick and reliable.
Ived used trains and buses in italy . Its easy with a good service and you can check routes online
We hired cars in Sicily and Sardinia a few years ago - Sardinia was pretty chill but Sicily was whack, proper no-quarter-given kind of thing. Put your head in the same space and it's ok once you've done a few miles, bit scary until then! Been awhile since we did trains but they were really good, great value, quick and reliable.
I quite enjoyed driving in Sicily, it's impossible to do anything wrong as there is a general flexibility to road rules. My view was "go where you want and try not to hit anyone", which is what the locals seemed to do.
First time we went we got a taxi from the airport into central Palermo which included the taxi driver going the wrong way in a bus lane for quite a distance to avoid traffic queues.
Last summer we flew into Milan and out of Pisa. We used the train to go to bologna and Florence , hired a car in Florence so we could explore around Tuscany, then got the train from Florence to the cinque terre and back to Pisa.
Italian train network is great, it's easy to book on your phone and there is (mostly) plenty of luggage space. The fast trains between cities are quite pricey, unless you book in advance
Didn't have any issue driving into/out of Florence, traffic was bad, but drivers were fine. Having said that I'd probably hire from the airport if I went again
The only real issue driving was that some country roads have a 30 kph limit and other cars really don't like it when you stick to that limit!
I've driven in Italy loads over the years and on balance it's more chilled out than the UK. (Except Naples, obvs).
Last year we did a similar thing to Slackboy. Flew to Pisa, had a day trip by train to Lucca, then the express to Florence where we rented a car for a few days round Tuscany. Then train to Rome.
By the time we got to Rome we were so sick of being in crowds of people who wanted to queue and gawp at famous stuff that on the day of the final stage of the giro we caught the train to the beach.
All the travelling was a doddle and no trains booked in advance.
Buses in the main valleys of the Dolomites are excellent, and often free if you have a visitor pass from your accommodation. In general we just parked our camper van and used the bus network to get to hikes etc (some even take bikes!).
I quite enjoyed driving in Sicily, it's impossible to do anything wrong as there is a general flexibility to road rules. My view was "go where you want and try not to hit anyone", which is what the locals seemed to do.
Exactly, I drove in and around a few cities and found it far easier than driving in/around london. People actually let you change lanes for example, instead of seeing an indicator and immediately trying to close the gap.
Italian driving is nowhere near as bad as the clichés say. Belgian's much worse. Chill out, and while you might get the odd tailgater, they'll pass you the moment it's (in)humanly possible. The biggest danger is oblivious fannies doing 80kmh in their Fiat 500 in the middle lane on the Autoroute.
We flew into Milan and stayed at Arona, Pescher, and Venice.
Did it all by public transport.
The trains are easy, either book by the app or at the ticket machines.
The intercity trains are great, proper big leather armchairs even in standard class thanks to euro gauge trains.
You can drink some wine, eat some cheese and chill out.
You can do 240kmh.
It's cheap, for the two of us it was way cheaper than hiring a car. And that was picking the fast intercity trains where possible, the slower trains would have been half the price and still a step up from UK trains. but you don't get the nice leather seats and a table either. Half an hour on the commuter trains was ~4euro, the most expensive leg was Pescher to Mestre was something like £35 each. We discovered afterwards they use dynamic pricing so keep half an eye on the app as you can save quite a bit booking a few days ahead rather than on the way to the station like we did.
You don't need to park it.
The interesting towns (or interesting bits of towns) aren't accessible by car anyway.
The lakes you can get around by ferry.
Busses were slightly hit and miss, especially the tourist ones around Pescher seemed to be running to a random timetable and route depending on how busy it was, they always turned up, but sometimes wouldn't be going where they were supposed to so you had to wait for the next one in 10 minutes.
Another important factor for rail travel is that there are local companies in some places that are not centrally timetabled. Nothing like our Trainline to join things up. Use Bahn.com to check if your rail journey is possbile as FerroviaItalia doesn't show everything.
Also validate your ticket on the platform before boarding, the guard will ask you to pay a stiff penalty if you don't.