Italy Trip 2024

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Transport

Trains

Interactive map;

Map of network (click twice to zoom in, doesn’t cover NW) or this (less detailed)

High speed Rome – Florence – Bologna

FrecciaLink is an integrated train and bus service to some destinations without a train station.

Communication

Ubigi eSIM $5 for 3GB 30d

Itinerary

Bologna (13-16 Oct)

Italy’s culinary capital and home to Europe’s oldest university, Bologna has a gloriously preserved medieval core. Some 20 towers loom over the red-brick centre, whose streets are lined with porticoes and crammed with delis, bars and trattorias. Check out the colossal Basilica di San Petronio, admire art in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, and chow down in the busy Quadrilatero district.

Transport

  • Rome to Bologna: 2h 12m £13 with around 70 trains per day.
  • Florence to Bologna is 40m with around 70 trains per day.

Accommodation

  • B&B Casa Elide 9.5 £56 inc breakfast. Many reviews mention street noise.
  • Bologna Center Town 8.3 £61, shared bathroom. Some reviews mention street noise. 1km from station.
  • Ospitalità San Tommaso d’Aquino 7.9 £62 inc breakfast. 1km+ from station.
  • Mary’s Tower 8.7 £65 inc. breakfast. 1km from station.
  • SoleLuna Fiera Rooms 8.7 £65. 1km from station.
  • Hotel Il Guercino 8.6 £68 (£73 with breakfast), cancellable, near station. Weird pricing – other rooms much more expensive.

Sights

Modena

Transport

  • Bologna to Modena: 29m, 23 trains per day. £3.76

Sights

Parma

Transport

  • Bologna to Parma: 56m, 19 trains per day. £7.00

Ferrara

 ringed by its intact medieval walls, huge castle complete with moat slap-bang in the city centre

Transport

  • Bologna to Ferrara: 28m, 40 trains per day, £4.56

Sights

  • Corso Ercole I d’Este: walk to sights below
  • Castello Estense: (tickets €14 inc. Lion Tower climb, closed Tues) moat and drawbridge
  • Quadrivio degli Angeli: richly decorated Renaissance architecture intersects: the Palazzo Turchi di Bagno, Palazzo Prosperi-Sacrati, Palazzo Strozzi Bevilacqua and Palazzo dei Diamanti (€15).
  • Porta degli Angeli: marvellously intact city wall
  • Certosa di Ferrara: the city’s monumental cemetery. Two snaking, semicircular arcades frame the entrance to the open-air museum, peaceful, visually stunning Renaissance-style grounds.

Ravenna

Marvel at the intricate beauty of Italy’s most gorgeous mosaics in Ravenna. Spend the morning gazing at the rich greens, brilliant golds and deep blues of the mosaics bathed in soft sunlight inside Basilica di San Vitale, ogle Ravenna’s oldest mosaics at Mausoleo di Galla Placidia, and try to tear your eyes away from the 26 white-robed mosaic martyrs dating from from the year 560 CE inside Basilica di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo.

  • Lunch on the region’s famed cuisine at Cucina del Condominio and spend the afternoon on the beach or exploring Museo Arcivescovile and Battistero Neoniano. End the day with craft beers at Darsenale.

Transport

  • Bologna to Ravenna: 1h15m €8

Rimini and San Marino (16-17 Oct)

Transport

  • Bologna to Rimini: 1h 4m (53m on the fastest high-speed Frecciargento services), 25 trains.
  • Rimini to San Marino is 1h every ~1.5 hours. Timetable to and from. (At Rimini, exit the station and walk right outside across the street. This is where you’ll need to buy a ticket for the bus. Look for the Burger King opposite of the train station, and look for a small kiosk right next to it. Yes, THIS is where you’ll need a ticket from. cash to purchase the bus ticket. It is 6 Euro one way or 12 Euro round trip. bus station, which is located about 200 meters from Burger King in front of the Napolean Hotel.)

Accommodation

  • Hotel Rossi 8 £37 2km from central bus stop
  • Hotel Crocenzi 8 £46
  • Hotel Joli San Marino 8.4 £47
  • Hotel La Rocca 8.6 £51 (cancellable)

Sights

Florence (17-19 Oct)

Two days is not long in Florence (Firenze), Italy’s peerless Renaissance city, but it’s enough for a breathless introduction to its signature sights: the Duomo, with its famous red-tiled dome; the Galleria degli Uffizi, home to one of the world’s greatest art collections; and, of course, Michelangelo’s muscular David in the Galleria dell’Accademia.

Whet your appetite for the road ahead with a couple of days in Florence. Take in the Renaissance masterpieces of the Galleria degli Uffizi and the architectural splendours of the Duomo. Spend some time checking out the street life around Piazza della Signoria and go face to face with Michelangelo’s David.

Transport

  • Rimini to Florence: 2h 35m, 24 trains per day, £13.43.

Accommodation

Sights

Greve (Chianti Area) – bus 30m

Siena (19-22 Oct)

in my view more remarkable than Florence if you are not into fine art

With its medieval palazzi and lordly Gothic architecture, Siena is a sight to compare with any in Tuscany. To admire it from above, climb the Torre del Mangia, the slender tower that soars over Palazzo Pubblico and the sloping Piazza del Campo. A short walk away, Siena’s 13th-century Duomo is one of Italy’s greatest Gothic churches.

Transport

Florence to Siena: 2h 8m, 34 trains per day. £8.96

Accommodation

Sights

San Gimignano is 1h20m by bus. (Poggibonsi is nearest train station.)

  • Piazza Duomo
  • Cathedral of San Gimignano, which is striking for its linear, unadorned facade, but do not be misled: it contains precious treasures such as the 14th-century fresco that covers its walls and has never been restored. Free audioguide.
  • Devil’s Tower
  • Torre Grossa, the highest tower in the city at 54 metres and one of the few you can climb
  • Rognosa tower ?, the tower of the Town Hall, the oldest and for centuries the tallest in the town.
  • Piazza della Cisterna: “commercial” area where shops were once located
  • Parco della Rocca: ruined medieval fortress with view over town
  • Church of Sant’Agostino
  • Torre e Casa Campatelli?

Dedicate day three to pottering about the vineyards and wine estates of the Chianti area. Stop off for a tasting at Greve in Chianti, the main town in the Chianti Fiorentino (the northernmost of the two Chianti districts), before lunching on prime steak in Panzano in Chianti and admiring contemporary art at the Castello di Ama

Pisa and Lucca (22-24 Oct)

On day six, head west to Pisa to see if the Leaning Tower really does lean (spoiler: it does, a lot). The Torre Pendente is the star of a trio of medieval sights on Piazza dei Miracoli, an elegant grassy square 2km north of the train station. Alongside the Torre, you can applaud Pisa’s pristine 12th-century Duomo and the stubby, cupcake-like Battistero.

Lucca very much like the other two, but less “discovered”, or at least that’s how it was 20 years ago when we visited).

Transport

  • Siena to Pisa: 1h 26m for £10
  • Siena to Lucca: 2h 24m
  • Bologna to Pisa: 1h 52m (usually 1 change).
  • Bologna to Lucca: 2h 47m.
  • Pisa to Lucca: 30m for £4. Last train back from Lucca is 21:13 or 21:42 (or an indirect one at 22:49).
  • Pisa to airport: PisaMover is 5m every 5-8m for €5, from near platform 14 to outside passenger terminal.

Accommodation

Sights

Lucca

Late October Lucca Comics and Games festival

  • City walls (walkable) and Porta San Pietro
  • Acquedotto del Nottolini
  • Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico di Lucca)
  • Duomo Di San Martino
  • St. Michael’s Church (San Michele al Foro)
  • Piazza dell’Anfiteatro
  • Torre Guinigi
  • Torre delle Ore
  • Piazza Napoleone
  • Basilica Di San Frediano
  • Palazzo Pfanner
  • Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi
  • Chiesa e Battistero di San Giovanni e Santa Reparata
  • Santuario di Santa Gemma Galgani

Discarded

1. Perugia * / Assisi * / Isola Polvese

Transport

The average journey time by train between Rome and Perugia is 3 hours and 16 minutes, with around 27 trains per day.

San Feliciano to Isola Polvese: ferry 10m

Perugia

San Feliciano ferry (for Lago Trasimeno/Isola Polvese) – nearest station Magione

Sights

2. Carrara *

WIkipedia

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