UPDATE - Next week is the big week. I just finished with finals and it was hell. I am trying to book the trains and I can't! just scroll to the bottom for the rest of the update.
UPDATE - Rail Europe, the US branch, will not send me tickets as I currently reside in Europe.
Original Post
Quote:
I am going to Italy for most likely two weeks. I want to these major cities (starred are "desirable", non-starred are "if possible"):- Milan
- Venice
- Pisa*
- Florence*
- Rome*
- Vatican City*
I know two weeks is not enough time to get the full experience, but try to take into account: I am lucky enough to have this opportunity since I am already living in the EU (not going to waste it), but I am poor enough where this can't get out of hand. I am thinking no more than 4 major sites per day. I'll be flying into Pisa Florence (PSA) airport through Ryanair on 21 Feb 2008, so that'll be the starting point.
To make my life really easy planning for this. I am using Hostel World. I've used them before and what I paid for is definitely what I got. No complaints.
However, for traveling in between cities I have been trying to think of an way to do this via trains, Ryanair.... and my head spins. However, I found that an Eurail pass all over Italy costs 271.00-USD (256.00-USD and a 12.00-USD charge) for 7 days in 2 months.
So I am asking your experienced TFP explorers some things! I have some questions about the Eurail and how to travel in the cities themselves cheaply.
- It says, "7 days in 2 months," and I take that to mean I can make only 7 trips from one city to another. Correct? Any stipulations that I haven't read on their site? Anything else about Eurail I should be aware of?
- What kind of public transportation is there? Buses? Trollies? Subways? Monorails? Something so that I don't get hosed by the taxi drivers? Seems there is always one day all the taxi drivers charge exorbitant amounts for a 5 minute fair... fuckers...
- Is there a better way to be going about this?
- What advice can you give a college student that is NOT going to be partying like normal?
I want to make this a serious trip, actually playing a tourist and not partying-my-face-off in a weekend to fly back to home base hung-over.
Any advice will be appreciated!
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