Italy's Frecciargento Rail from Bari to Lecce on Tuesday!

[Ziv]

I do not speak Italian but the Italia Rail website makes it really easy to get exactly the seat you want, and fast, too. I wanted to splurge so I got the first class ticket and I got the seat by itself so I would not have a seat mate. They have 1x2 seating and you can choose your seat for just €2.40. They do charge €5 for the service which burns. But for €31 total I got a first class ticket on a Frecciargento fast train from Bari to Lecce, 150km/100m away and the trip takes just 80 minutes.
I hit the pay button and my phone pinged with the ticket 5 seconds later. Sweet!

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[Ziv]

Rats. Website had my seat facing forward on the sea side view of the car but I am sitting backwards on the land side. Oh well.
Best laid plans...

On edit: Conductor just moved me to a forward facing seat in the shady "sea view" side. Yea!

 

[TrackWalker]

...On edit: Conductor just moved me to a forward facing seat in the shady "sea view" side. Yea!

Molto bene!

 

[Ziv]

Verissimo! LOL! I got to the station early because my espresso place was jamming and I did not want to wade into the mosh pit with my pack on. Watched 5 trains come in and out in 50 or so minutes. 2 were POP commuter trains but there were 3 regional trains to Milan and Rome (I think) that left the station in around an hour. That is a lot of trains. And they were all 10 to 13 coaches with locomotives at each end. And my train was nearly empty, 2 or 3 people per car, so Italy is paying a decent amount of money to maintain these frequencies even in seasons when the trains are at less than 10% capacity at least part of the time. The got €8Bn back in 2009, not sure what they get now.
The red Italo trains look the fastest, then the Frecciarossa (Red) trains. I was on an older Freccioargento (silver?). The Intercity looks slower. And the POP looks like a regular commuter rail train. And then there are 3 or 4 more types of trains. Let me see if I can download the photos I took of the different trains. Like I said, the Italo Alstom locomotives look the coolest, but I do not know if they are fast or just look fast.

 

[Ziv]

Oh yeah. There are 3 "train stations" within 100 meters of each other. One elevated and two on ground level. All three of them have a Track 1, which is where my Frecciargento train was going to show up. Track 1 ovest (sp?) was the Alstom Italo and for a minute I just about boarded it by mistake. Then the second Track sign went on w my train info. I enclosed that photo of the two Track 1s next to each other.
I am head I was not in a rush, I was not sure of my train and could easily have gotten on the wrong one.
But I finished the day with this in Lecce.

 

[Ziv]

Got this bit of bad news on my way to Tropea. It could have been worse. LOL! 2 minutes late I can live with.
I have been traveling with TrenItalia from Bari to Lecce, Lecce to Taranto, then Flixbus from Taranto to Matera and a taxi from Matera to Metaponto. Then it was TrenItalia from Metaponto to Cosenza and then on to Paola and Tropea the next day. I have had layovers as short as 14 minute and made every train with time to spare.
Off to Salerno by train and Amalfi by bus tomorrow.

 

[jis]

The red Italo trains look the fastest, then the Frecciarossa (Red) trains. I was on an older Freccioargento (silver?). The Intercity looks slower. And the POP looks like a regular commuter rail train. And then there are 3 or 4 more types of trains.

The next level down after Frecciargento is Frecciablanca (White)

That is followed by IC, and that plus the Night Trains pretty much cover the whole FS gamut.

 

[Ziv]

Argh... I am facing backwards on the wrong side of the train again. And Business coach 1 is last not first and kind of crowded.
So much for the arrow on the seating chart indicating the trains direction of travel.
They are just messing with me, now. LOL.
Still a nice trip, should be in Salerno soon.

 

[Ziv]

TrenItalia has been a great experience, even if all of my reserved seats have been facing the wrong way... Which kind of indicates the problem may lie with me.
Anyway, the train trip from Tropea to Salerno was smooth sailing and fun. Then I tried to ride the 5120 bus from Salerno to Amalfi. I asked for help on bus times from my desk clerk in Tropea and I believe she misinterpreted one of the Icons for bus frequency, but that is no big deal. The Sunday bus showed up 15 minutes late but did not stop because there were bodies packed in like Tokyo Metro commuters. So I looked for taxis but on the first sunny Sunday of the year the taxis were GONE from downtown Salerno. Did not see one taxi in over an hour of looking at hotels and taxi stands. So I went back to the bus stop. And the 5120 was 20 minutes late again, but there was room for me to stand by the door in the middle. And have you noticed how much more you notice people coughing and sneezing since Covid? That bus had two hacking coughers and 3 or 4 people sneezing in an epic manner. Rail travel gives you a LOT more personal space. The coup de grace was that the bus driver got irritated by all the people in cars who were driving with their left wheel in the center of the road instead of keeping their right (passenger) door as close to the wall on the outside as possible. So the bus driver forced the cars to back up every 2 or 3 minutes since backing a big bus would be much more difficult than backing up a car or three. And the driver was positively steaming by the time we got to Amalfi. 23 kilometers took us 85 minutes. 16.5 miles? In an hour and 25 minutes off season.
I like rail travel but public buses might not be my cup of tea any longer though this is admittedly not a normal bus trip.
But I got to my apartment in Amalfi, got a pizza and a bottle of wine and I am golden.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

TrenItalia has been a great experience, even if all of my reserved seats have been facing the wrong way... Which kind of indicates the problem may lie with me.
Anyway, the train trip from Tropea to Salerno was smooth sailing and fun. Then I tried to ride the 5120 bus from Salerno to Amalfi. I asked for help on bus times from my desk clerk in Tropea and I believe she misinterpreted one of the Icons for bus frequency, but that is no big deal. The Sunday bus showed up 15 minutes late but did not stop because there were bodies packed in like Tokyo Metro commuters. So I looked for taxis but on the first sunny Sunday of the year the taxis were GONE from downtown Salerno. Did not see one taxi in over an hour of looking at hotels and taxi stands. So I went back to the bus stop. And the 5120 was 20 minutes late again, but there was room for me to stand by the door in the middle. And have you noticed how much more you notice people coughing and sneezing since Covid? That bus had two hacking coughers and 3 or 4 people sneezing in an epic manner. Rail travel gives you a LOT more personal space. The coup de grace was that the bus driver got irritated by all the people in cars who were driving with their left wheel in the center of the road instead of keeping their right (passenger) door as close to the wall on the outside as possible. So the bus driver forced the cars to back up every 2 or 3 minutes since backing a big bus would be much more difficult than backing up a car or three. And the driver was positively steaming by the time we got to Amalfi. 23 kilometers took us 85 minutes. 16.5 miles? In an hour and 25 minutes off season.
I like rail travel but public buses might not be my cup of tea any longer though this is admittedly not a normal bus trip.
But I got to my apartment in Amalfi, got a pizza and a bottle of wine and I am golden.

That picture of the Amalfi coast shows the travel hassles were all worth it! How incredibly beautiful!

Glad you got there eventually and are relaxing in such a beautiful place.

 

[SwedeC]

Last July from Rome to Bologna, we took train Frecciarosso 9524, business class, carriage 3, seats 13D & 14D from Rome Termini to Bologna Centrale (307 km, 190 miles) with a brief stop in Florence. Florence is a stub-end terminal; the driver stops then walks to the other end of the train and departs. Those facing forward now face aft. Nice small refreshment and wine.
Three days later we went to Ravenna to join our cruise ship. We bought the Ravenna tickets (second class, only class on "regional" trains) on-line for 21 Euro. Put the tickets on my iPhone to show conductor. We found the departures board, which showed our train would depart using track 11. Walked the underground passage that connects all platforms but the high-speed ones and ascended at track 11. We found seats!! Waited for the train with lots of people. We entered and took a pair of seats in an area adjacent to the door. Our suitcases fit next to one chair and the small cases fit under the seats. The train zipped away, doing up to 120 Km/H. But it was clearly a "local" train, stopping every 10 minutes or so. We, and much of the crowd, got off at Ravenna. Nice little station on a roundabout. Bused to the ship.
Train travel in Italy is very pleasant.

 

[Ziv]

Sounds like your impression of Italian Rail is the same as mine, Swede. Pretty well organized and pleasant. I left Italy yesterday and the only real problem I had with finding tickets and then the train was the one from Rome Termine to the airport. I finally gave up on the machines since I could not make heads or tails of the system they used. So I went and bought the ticket at a tobacco shop in the station then asked the gate guard which gate to use. The Tabacchi shop charges a 4 Euro fee on top of the ticket price but it was worth it. Smooth sailing from that point.

 

[jis]

In the past I have had a problem of even finding the train for which I held a ticket from Roma Termini to Zurich totally missing at Termini, i.e. not even a single mention of it anywhere. Upon frantic inquiry in my less than passable Italian it was discovered that without announcing anywhere publicly they had silently moved its departure to Roma Tiburtina for the day. So then it was a frantic Taxi ride to Tiburtina to finally meet up with the missing train (it was a Napoli Dortmund EC).

The next problem was that by the time I got to my designated space in Couchette, about 5 mins before departure, it was discovered that the Coach Attendant had kindly sold my place to someone else. Fortunately the Ticket Examiner came by just about then and restored my accommodation to me, who had the ticket for it. An altercation ensued between the Ticket Examiner guy and the Coach Attendant, who apparently had pocketed some money from the other fellow. So now he had to find him some suitable accommodation on a fully booked train. I don't know how the whole thing resolved eventually.

 

[Ziv]

In the past I have had a problem of even finding the train for which I held a ticket from Roma Termini to Zurich totally missing at Termini, i.e. not even a single mention of it anywhere. Upon frantic inquiry in my less than passable Italian it was discovered that without announcing anywhere publicly they had silently moved its departure to Roma Tiburtina for the day. So then it was a frantic Taxi ride to Tiburtina to finally meet up with the missing train (it was a Napoli Dortmund EC).

The next problem was that by the time I got to my designated space about 5 mins before departure, it was discovered that the Coach Attendant had kindly sold my place to someone else. Fortunately the Ticket Examiner came by just about then and restored my accommodation to me, who had the ticket for it. An altercation ensued between the Ticket Examiner guy and the Coach Attendant, who apparently had pocketed some money from the other fellow. So now he had to find him some suitable accommodation on a fully booked train. I don't know how the whole thing resolved eventually.

Your experience makes me wonder how many seats had the Coach Attendant sold a second time and did NOT get caught doing it because the people with the original tickets did not get from Rome Termini to Tiburtina?
The saying that "It is not a crime if you do not get caught" comes to mind.
But TrenItalia and the online tickets were a dream in the smaller cities. Easy to read instructions in Italian, English and 3 other languages, relatively clear schedules, plenty of choices and access to almost all cities and most of the larger towns and a whole flock of small towns. And Business Class upgrades were pretty cheap and comfortable. I think Executive is the expensive option. I think base fare from Naples to Rome was €27 and with the Business upgrade it was €36. Not cheap but I got a 50 cent drink and a 30 cent pretzel serving included at that price! LOL!

New item by Mark B.

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