Tuscany - The Basics - Part 3

Tuscany - The Basics - Part 3 cont.

Getting around Tuscany once you have arrived will depend a lot on what you want to see, how much time you have and how much local colour you want to view.

By train

Italian State Railways, Trenitalia run the train services in Italy. They are however often called Ferrovie dello Stato. Italy public transport does have a poor reputation but this is becoming a thing of the past. Currently journeys between the major towns are relatively inexpensive and reasonably efficient in their timetabling.

However if you are planning lots of train travel in Tuscany you should remember that large cities such as Florence and Pisa will have stations that in the middle of the city. However a lot of the smaller towns do not and you can find the stations are some distance from the centre. In this case you need to plan for a taxi or bus ride so check the map before you travel. This true at important and tourist hotspots places such as Siena so nowhere should be considered immune. The workings of timetable and routing system can seem strange if you have not encountered it before. You may need to change trains in so small town when you would think the journey would be direct. The other downside of train travel is that large areas of southern Tuscany have no train service.

Ticket machines

Although you may have purchased a ticket for your journey it is not valid. That is until you have used one of the small yellow machines in the ticket hall or on the platform. You must stamp your ticket before boarding the train to validate it. Be careful not to stamp the return portion of your ticket until you need to return. Failure to your validate your ticket leaves you liable to an on the spot fine. The tickets should be validated only as you start to travel, this is because the tickets are only valid for a specific time and distance combination. After the ticket has been stamped it is valid six hours if the destination is up to 200km away, over this distance then they are valid for 24 hours.

By bus

If you’re planning on exploring Tuscany in depth by bus you will quickly come across the regional bus companies. There are many different companies however they are all part of a joint public and private ownership system. Some of the companies are quite small and will only run on local routes, others run between major local cities and some travel nationwide. So you can get a bus almost anywhere but schedules can be sparse and are not coordinated. In more rural areas schedules are often based around local need so you may find little or no service in the middle of the day

City buses are normally good value with a ticket costing around €1. This will be valid for either a single journey or a set period of about 60 minutes. You must always buy a ticket before getting on the bus. You can get them from local tabaccheria or the kiosks at bus terminals and stops. Again you must validate them in the machine inside the bus. There are regular ticket checks and spot fines for offenders will make a large dent in your wallet.

Continued in Part 4