Trenitalia

Trenitalia is a much cheaper way of getting around in Italy than bus and there are plenty of connections around the country, tickets particularly on the "Regionale" trains are very reasonable - at something like 6 euros/100km. The trains are also very comfortable and at first sight even the cheaper trains are a blessing of comfort if you are used to using cheap trains in Central or Eastern Europe. There's quite a lot of room for luggage, normally plenty of seats available and the temperatures are usually just about right (apart from the time the window was stuck open and it was pouring in with rain), the staff at the station tend to be multi-lingual and ...  Read the complete review

Ferrovie dello Stato means Railways of the State/Government, they were created in 1905 after 3 private companies (Rete Adriatica, Rete Mediterranea and Rete Sicula) were bought by the Government. Ferrovie dello Stato declined a lot in operation efficiency in the late 1970s but mainly because its target customers were not businessmen but immigrants. In the early 1990s the Government started an overall reorganisation. Ferrovie dello Stato and Fiat Ferroviaria made the Pendolino, the fastest train in the world for mountanious terrain, which tilts in curves. The direttissima line linking Bologna to Florence built by Mussolini was reconstrutcted and many new lines were ...  Read the complete review

My travels in the summer of 1999 took me through miles of railway in France and Italy. I must say right away that the French train service is far superior to that in Italy. In France, we were able to travel on the speedy TGV trains for a minimal supplement. I can definitely accept having to pay a little extra for such quality. Unfortunately, in Italy we were forced to pay even larger supplements for virtually every major train journey, even though none of the trains approached the standard of French TGVs. The whole idea of having an Interrail pass is paid-for train travel, yet this simply isn't possible in Italy, unless you have the time to take regional trains ...  Read the complete review

Having made many trips of differing lengths on italian trains, I've generally found them to be superior to the british equivalents. They have a different pricing structure though depending on which train you take, whether it is a local, express, intercity or eurostar service. The eurostar services are the most expensive, but they are very nice. On some services you have to book a reservation which costs more. It is much cheaper to book the train tickets, even on the same services, in Italy, than to buy them over here beforehand (I know this from bitter experience!) and in the stations which I have been to they have fully automated multi-lingual ticket machines for ...  Read the complete review