Itineraries, route guides and hidden places for the independent traveller. No hire car, no stress — just Italy at its best, seen from a train window.
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Everything you need to know — from buying tickets to Trenitalia vs Italo. Your first Italian train trip, simplified.
Read the guide → 02How to build a realistic, car-free itinerary in Italy — including which regions connect best by train.
Read the guide → 03Trenitalia vs Italo, regional trains, ferries and city metros — a plain-English guide to every transport option.
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From hitting the right booking window to knowing when a late train owes you a refund, these nine practical tricks can shave meaningful money off getting around Italy by rail.
Trieste is reachable by direct train from Venice in 2 hours, a former Habsburg free port on the Adriatic with grand literary cafés, a seafront square, and a history that swings between Vienna, Trieste and Ljubljana.
Venice is the one Italian city where car-free travel isn't a choice - it's the only option. Here's how to arrive by train, get around by foot and vaporetto, and see the city beyond St Mark's Square.
Urbino has no railway station of its own, but that's never stopped a determined traveller - here's exactly how to reach this walled Renaissance city on the Marche hilltops using nothing but trains and a regional bus.
Under half an hour by train from Venezia Santa Lucia, with no booking needed - here’s how to get to Padua, which ticket to buy and what to see when you arrive.
Ravenna was the last capital of the Western Roman Empire, then the seat of Byzantine power in Italy for two centuries more. Eight monuments survive from that era - the finest collection of early Christian mosaics anywhere in the world. An hour from Bologna by direct train.