Ticket Cost:

2 classe – 3.40 Euro per person (one way) (children 4-10 about 50% less)

Schedule Verification:

Before departing for Italy, verify train schedule times at http://www.ferroviedellostato.it/homepage_en.html. Upon arrival at the first station, verify schedule times. Make note of the train number as your destination may/may not show on the schedule board. Use the train number to find your track (binario.)

The departure board is in Firenze SMN. This is the old style board with mechanical letters and numbers. The newer boards are 100% digital. The column to the left of the times is the train type/train number. (On the day this was taken, we were waiting for the Eurostar to Roma Termini at 13:20.)

Getting on and off the trains:

In most cases, the time that you have available to get on/off a train is very limited – 2 minutes! No, that is not a typo. Yes, there are exceptions (but not many.) It is for this reason that you will find people moving from car to car long after the train has left the station. Get on board and find your car/seats afterwards.

At the other end of your train ride, know about when your train is due to arrive (they are actually quite punctual.) A few minutes prior to the anticipated arrival time, move towards the doorway. When the train stops, move quickly to get off. (This gets to be a challenge which I address at www.ftroute.com/FCO_Rom_Civ.htm .) Don’t dilly-dally around as the train will not wait for you. You could easily find yourself waiting to get off the train 50-60 kilometers down the track.

Ticket Validation:

After you purchase your ticket, and prior to boarding the train, you must get your ticket validated (time-stamped.) Located on most platforms are yellow machines such as the one in the photograph. You slip your ticket in and it will be stamped. (Note: if it doesn’t stamp after a couple of tries, move to another machine. These machines do break down.)

Traveling with a ticket that has not been validated is the same as traveling without a ticket at all. Fines are heavy! The validation scheme applies to tickets on buses also. For buses, the validation machines are located on-board at the front and rear of the bus.

Be it on a train or on a bus, you may be approached by a conductor who will check your ticket. Conductors on buses are the hop-on, hop-off types. You may or may not even see them. (During the course of 6 train rides in June ’07, we never had a ticket checked. In fact, on numerous bus rides in Roma and Firenze, we never had a ticket checked. Next time it will probably happen every single time – you never know.