The Dos and Don’ts of Transportation in Italy

Hey All!

I’m finally getting around to writing this blog. Over the summer we went on a beautiful trip to Italy. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We left Atlanta in the middle of Hurricane Irma and were boarded on the airplane sitting on the airport’s apron for a couple hours. We were able to move our flights up in the day and we still didn’t beat the storm. Worse yet, we couldn’t land where we were supposed to land, which rendered our train ticket useless and we did almost everything wrong during our whole trip mostly due to inexperience, and half way due to circumstance.

DO NOT fly to Florence. If you are going to Florence for part of your Italian stay, schedule it in the middle of your trip if possible. It basically is located in between Venice and Rome anyway so it’s unlikely you will go there first if you’re going to the other two cities. We had scheduled to go to Florence originally for a wedding in the area and were going to get there early, but our friends (Frankie Day and her husband) bought tickets later to Rome. We calculated we could swing down to Rome for a couple days before heading back up for the wedding and finish out the trip in Venice. We bought a train ticket ahead of time from the Florence airport to Rome. However, when our plane got to Florence, the winds were so strong, the plane rerouted to Venice instead. This was problematic, because Venice is approximately 4 hours north of Florence and we were supposed to take a train another 4 hours south to Rome, doubling our trip. Apparently, this is totally a normal thing that happens with the Florence airport. We talked to many other tourists and the airport being too windy to land at, is typical. We were flying in for a wedding and other guests were rerouted to Pisa, Rome and we were the only ones rerouted to Venice because everyone arrived on different days. If you want to avoid any delays or rerouting, it may be best to just fly into the other airports. Worst of all, we flew Delta airlines and KLM was the carrier that took us from Amsterdam to Italy. They do not fly out of Venice. When we arrived, there were no Delta employees we could talk to, because they redirected us to their affiliate carrier, who did not fly out of Venice. All the airline offered us was a bus ticket to Florence that would take about six hours according to the current traffic pattern. They would not cover any train tickets which would have been faster, and there would be no stops for food after we had already flown from Amsterdam with no flight meals. The bus was also scheduled to leave immediately. At this point we would have been more than eight hours without food and arrive in Florence 4 hours from our destination, Rome, in six hours. We followed the airline employee to the buses, loaded our bags and boarded the bus and made the decision to leave because the whole thing was so disorganized once we found out more details. We opted to pay for high speed train tickets to Rome at our own expense, which was approximately and additional 80 euros. This brings us to item #2.
Us loaded on the bus to Florence from Venice right before we decided it was a terrible idea and we bailed
DO NOT buy train tickets ahead of time. We made the mistake of buying our train tickets ahead of time. There is hardly a price difference and because we bought them online, we couldn’t switch our tickets when our flights got messed up. You can easily buy them at the train station from a kiosk or from a ticketing window.
DO take the train to Rome, Cinque Terre, Florence and Venice. Parking is a fortune in these areas. Cinque Terre is a small fishing village built before cars were a thing and parking is available only at a premium, and is extremely limited to just a few parking garages near the villages. Parking in Rome is also expensive and it’s better to stay in one of the neighborhoods in the middle of the city and walk everywhere (we chose the Parione neighborhood). Taxis are easily accessible in the city, but not often needed. We actually drove to Cinque Terre and everything we read described it as narrow and scary, and it actually wasn’t terrible. We thought it was totally manageable. However, we had driven in Tuscany for a few days and were used to narrow Italian roads, and it wasn’t much different than the other roads we drove on previously. If you’ve just arrived in Italy and aren’t accustomed to driving on narrow Italian roads, it might not be the best idea. Also, parking costs money so avoid it if possible, but if you’ve already rented a vehicle don’t worry about it too much. We parked at one of the garages and bought a train pass to visit the rest of the villages. It was a beautiful drive.
Map near the side of the road on the way to Cinque Terre by car
DO take a water bus in Venice. The Venice sestiere is completely inaccessible by vehicle, and it’s best to take the train to Venice and then a low cost water bus, not an expensive water taxi, to where you’re staying in the sestiere which will run around 8-11 euros each way. We knew water taxis were expensive and walked almost 2 miles from the train station to our air bnb with our luggage. We, as a group typically walk 4 miles a day in our daily lives so it wasn’t bad, but our suitcases were annoying only because it was pretty wet our whole trip. We took the water bus to the train station on the way back. From there we took a bus from the train station to the airport.
What a water bus looks like

On the waterbus in Venice
DO rent a car in Tuscany. Uber was recently banned in Italy. The only option for travel in Tuscany is by taxi and if you choose to stay in the wine country, like we did, 30 minutes outside the city of Florence in Pozzolatico, it’s almost impossible to get a cab to come out to where you’re staying after 8pm. We missed a night out with friends because the only available cabs took the other wedding guests to the city of Florence. Also, we stayed at a Borgo, which means farmhouse in Italian, and the only way to get anywhere was to walk narrow streets not designed for pedestrians at all. Italians drive very fast in small cars and it’s pretty dangerous to be on foot after the sun goes down. We walked a quarter mile up the road from the Borgo to Dinner a couple nights and ran into this issue.
Walking one of the narrow roads in Tuscany designed for vehicles
DO NOT use a car in Florence.If you’re staying in the city of Florence, a car is not advised by the city because many roads are one way streets, or for pedestrians only and parking is limited. There are also heavy fines if you bring your car into the limited traffic zone. If you go to Florence from Tuscany, there are places to park just outside the city.
DO use mobile apps to hail a taxi. Use apps like MyTaxi or appTaxi to hail your taxi similar to an Uber or Lyft, since Uber is no longer permitted in Italy. The apps lets you choose a pickup point and a drop off location. It also gives you the rate for your fare and the ability to use a credit card instead of using cash. Do not ask a cab driver for their rates without knowing what your fare should cost. You can easily google it. Legitimate cab drivers use rates that are printed, and located at taxi pick up lanes, like at the airport, but cab drivers who are not legitimate will quote you whatever rate you want and generally drive taxis not marked with the same logos at the pick- up/ drop off. The safest way to guarantee a fair fare rate is to use the apps. We knew this, but tested it at the airport and were quoted 40 euros to travel a distance that we googled would only cost 7 euros.