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Can't find ticket La Spezia - Milano Centrale


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First time user, and I am trying to book a seat reservation for La spezia - Milano Centrale on Sunday 14 May.  Can someone help?  Am I right in saying there are no train seat availability?.  if so, can someone suggest how i get from La spezia to Milano on this date.  I’m really concerned I can’t get out of La Spezia.  do buses run. -  

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Best answer by Al_G 18 March 2023, 07:51

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Geh in die RailPlanerApp und folge der Anleitung:)

Userlevel 7
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Geh in die RailPlanerApp und folge der Anleitung:)

The rail planner app doesn't show availability.

www.trenitalia.com also shows a lot of fully booked trains, although there still some trains with availability. There are also many options to travel by regional train, reservation-free, not much slower than the options with reservations. Choose "Regional trains” to get an overview of those.

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Thank you.

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I’ve just booked via Trentalia site.  This is really disappointing as it appears i can’t use my eurail pass.

Userlevel 7
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Of course you can use the Eurail pass. There are the reservation-free itineraries if all high-speed trains are booked.

 

Check if you can get a refund on Trenitalia's ticket

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I’ve just booked via Trentalia site.  This is really disappointing as it appears i can’t use my eurail pass.

I'm not sure why you would book a normal ticket when you have a rail pass. Of course you can use it. I merely suggested to look at the options available on the Trenitalia website because that is the best timetable source for Italy, also showing availability. Booking pass reservations is not possible anymore on that website but there are other reservation possibilities, such as the ÖBB website.

On the other hand, La Spezia to Milan is not that far, so a travel day on your pass can actually be more expensive than a norma ticket.

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Can you please help and look at La Spezia to Milan.  How can I book this.  When I look and chose a train and click on seat reservation nothing comes up.  Instead directing me to OBB site.  Still nothing comes up there.  I am booking for Sunday 14 May.  I am afraid if I don’t have a seat reservation, there will be no train for me to get on?

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The Intercity trains (with mandatory reservations) seems full yes but don't worry there are reservation-free regional trains where you just hop on and off as you want. No need to book anything for these trains (it's not possible anyway).

You look the schedule on bahn.de or trenitalia.com (filter regional trains) and then simply board.

Let me know if it's still not clear

Edit : an example would be

- R La Spezia Centrale 12:15 - Sestri Levante 13:19

- R Sestri Levante 13:28 - Genova P. Principe 14:46

- RE Genova P. Principe 15:46 - Milano Centrale 17:35

All reservation-free, nothing to book.

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Hi and thank you for your help and patience, but I am bewildered that I have purchased this pass and in essence it has been a waste of money, as I am now working off the Trenitalia, or Bahn timetable as the eurail timetable is indicating already there are no trains i can board as they are fully booked.

 I have gone on the trenitalia site and on Sunday 14 May I cannot see a 12.15pm train (was the example you gave an actual one on the day?).  

I see an 11.50am La Spezia - Genova Brignole-Piazza principe-Milan Central (2 changes total). arr 15.40

So am I to presume that I ignore the Eurail train planner and presume everything on there is fully booked and I have to use either Trenitalia or Bahn site for trains that I can get on to, otherwise I’ll be going to the station for a train that I can’t get on to.

Userlevel 7
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Hi and thank you for your help and patience, but I am bewildered that I have purchased this pass and in essence it has been a waste of money, as I am now working off the Trenitalia, or Bahn timetable as the eurail timetable is indicating already there are no trains i can board as they are fully booked.

 I have gone on the trenitalia site and on Sunday 14 May I cannot see a 12.15pm train (was the example you gave an actual one on the day?).  

I see an 11.50am La Spezia - Genova Brignole-Piazza principe-Milan Central (2 changes total). arr 15.40

So am I to presume that I ignore the Eurail train planner and presume everything on there is fully booked and I have to use either Trenitalia or Bahn site for trains that I can get on to, otherwise I’ll be going to the station for a train that I can’t get on to.

 

If the trains you are looking at are marked R, RE or RV (as those ones are) then these can not be booked out. These trains do not allow anyone to reserve seats, you just add them to your pass, board the train and take any free seat.

 

Looking further into this, all those unavailable trains look very odd, unless there is a particular event that day that has massively ramped up demand. No other Sunday between now and then has booked out trains like that, even this coming Sunday has plenty of availability. It could well be that Trenitalia hasn’t released those trains yet for some reason.

You always have the option to use the slower trains so you won’t be stranded, check closer to the date and if the fast trains have opened up you can always book a seat on one right up to the day of travel if you wish.

 

In Italy trains listed as Frecce… or InterCity require seat reservations and can sell out, these are the faster trains, as can be seen there are alternatives by taking the slower regional trains that do not take reservations.
 

 

If you use the option in the eurail app marked “No Seat Reservations” it will filter out the trains it has tagged as requiring reservations and show connections only using those that can be taken without any pre-booking.

 

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Thank you for your incredible research. 

Trouble is, it is the same with other connections too that I am trying to book reservations, or locate available trains I can confidentially to to the station and know i will get on them.  

eg. - Milan to Lucerne -

Geneva to Avignon - 

Avignon - Paris - all the same experience. 

I purchased the Eurail pass, believing (wrongly), I could book seat reservations to avoid long trips and many changes, as I have heavy bags to carry.

 

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The reason you have been advised to use the Trainitalia and Bahn apps over the Eurail is because of the different way they work.

Eurail app runs from a database stored on your phone that is downloaded only once every few weeks, it is done this way to be available on the app even without an internet connection although it does mean it is never going to be as accurate as the online planners from the railway companies who actually run the trains and constantly update their data.

It is not outrageously inaccurate, in my experience it has been accurate on at least 90% of the trains I have used, it is just that there is no way, particularly for someone unfamiliar with the railways, to tell when it is wrong.

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Ok thank you.  You are really helpful. 

If the eurail timetable is incorrect, then i can’t load that trip up on my eurail mobile pass and then i won’t have registered a trip for that day when the conductor comes round to inspect.   I had heard if I don’t validate something (?), then I could be fined 200 euro.  I have a 10 day global pass over 2 months. 

 

 

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Thank you for your incredible research. 

Trouble is, it is the same with other connections too that I am trying to book reservations, or locate available trains I can confidentially to to the station and know i will get on them.  

eg. - Milan to Lucerne -

Geneva to Avignon - 

Avignon - Paris - all the same experience. 

I purchased the Eurail pass, believing (wrongly), I could book seat reservations to avoid long trips and many changes, as I have heavy bags to carry.

 

What dates?

Trains fully booked out months in advance is certainly not usual across Europe.

There are a small number of predictable routes that fill up and there are always peaks of demand around general behaviour of locals in many places such as Friday afternoon/evenings from big cities as well as local holidays/events that seemingly see the entire population of some regions all flock to the exact same place at the same time but in general, particularly outside the peak July - Aug season it is not a problem finding reasonable connections to most places at short notice never mind 2 months in advance.

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Ok this is a mystery.   thank you for taking the time to help

Dates as follows.  I really wanted seat reservations and direct trains with morning schedules, no later than 10am departures:

 

20 May Milan-Bolzano

29 May Bolzano - Milan

30 May milan - Lucern via Chiasso (so i go through Gotthard Tunnel)

3 June Geneva-Avignon France

11 June Avignon-Paris. 

 

 

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Ok thank you.  You are really helpful. 

If the eurail timetable is incorrect, then i can’t load that trip up on my eurail mobile pass and then i won’t have registered a trip for that day when the conductor comes round to inspect.   I had heard if I don’t validate something (?), then I could be fined 200 euro.  I have a 10 day global pass over 2 months. 

 

 

 

Like I said, it is rare enough it is inaccurate, often it will just be timings that are out and the inaccuracies often get corrected closer to travel as long as you update the app.

The vast majority of trains will be in the app, due to the differences in the way they work journeys involving multiple connections do not always show the same in different planners, if that happens the adding the individual train journeys in usually will get them to show.

If you just can’t get a train to show then there is a facility to manually add a train so you are never stuck even if the app fails to find a train.

 

To give you an example, my last trip involved approx 60 trains across 7 countries. Out of those, the app failed to show 3 trains, two of those are known to be an issue the other was a random omission. all 3 are trains you would have to go out of your way to use, the rest of the trains all showed in the app without problem. I added the missing ones through manual entry before boarding and had no issues.

Of those 60 odd trains, I can’t say exactly how many times the pass was checked but on only 2 or 3 occasions was it seriously inspected beyond the QR code being scanned or the main body of text looked at, only those 2 were bothered enough to scroll down to check their actual train was listed.

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Ok this is a mystery.   thank you for taking the time to help

Dates as follows.  I really wanted seat reservations and direct trains with morning schedules, no later than 10am departures:

 

20 May Milan-Bolzano

29 May Bolzano - Milan

30 May milan - Lucern via Chiasso (so i go through Gotthard Tunnel)

3 June Geneva-Avignon France

11 June Avignon-Paris. 

 

 


Milan - Bolzano will require a change in Verona Porta Nuova

You have a choice of reservation or not on both sections.

Milan - Verona is about 1h15 on fast Freccearossa trains (€10 reservation) or 1h50 on non reservation regional trains.

Verona - Bolzano has slow regional trains taking 2h20 and fast trains taking 1h30, they are a mix of different classes and only some of these require reservations.

Milano Centrale 09.45 - Verona 10.58 FR (€10)

Verona 11.50 - Bolzano/Bozen 13.30 RV (no reservations needed)

 

Bolzano 08.45 - Verona 10.20 FR

Verona 10.32 - Milano C 11.45 FR

Both require reservations.

 

If you mean you want the fast route through the long Gotthard base tunnel then there are direct Milan - Luzern trains at 08.10 and 10.10 taking 3h30, these require a supplement/reservation of €10

 

All of the above can be reserved at Austrian railway website OBB by adding interrail/eurail as discount and selecting “search for tickets” NOT “seat reservations  as explained here

 

If it is the slower scenic route across the Gotthard pass then a few changes are needed onto Swiss regional trains. Swiss internal trains in general except for a few specific tourist trains do not need reservations, just turn up and travel.

 

Avignon has 2 stations, Avignon Centre which amazingly is in the centre of the city and Avignon TGV on the outskirts where all the high speed TGV trains serve. There are trains linking the 2 but not particularly frequently.

Geneva - Avignon, this will be by using a regional non reservation train Geneva to Lyon and a reservation compulsory TGV from there to Avignon TGV.

for example

Geneva 09.14 - Lyon Part Deux 11.22

Lyon PD 11.38 - Avignon TGV 12.45

Avignon TGV 13.21 - Avignon Centre 13.26

Lyon - Avignon TGV needs booking, you can do that here https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv#TravelWish or on eurail booking site.

 

Alternatively you can do the entire trip without reservations by changing in Valence Ville

 

Geneva 10.00 - Valence Ville 13.16

Valence Ville 13.37 - Avignon Centre 14.49

These are both TER trains, the French designation for non-reservation regional express.

 

Avignon - Paris, there are TGV every hour or so from Avignon TGV, book as above.

 

There is plenty of availability on all your routes/dates.

 

 

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Gosh this is a lot to take in.  i can’t thank you enough.  I will look over this in these next few days and get my head around it all.  Again, many, many thanks. 

Userlevel 7
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Bookings for Trenitalia with an Interrail pass can be checked and made here:

https://partners.italiarail.com/default?force_pass=true&aff=EURAIL&fbclid=IwAR1zG__8EtpSCsza3WI-eFahHfXJqmDhBLIZUyoO5qYeAc8t7fzjgBbTd5A

There is a dropdown box to choose whether you have a first or second class pass.

This is a dedicated page for pass holders.

 

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It may not be linked but the Alpini annual get together is happening that weekend in Udine (I know it is way beyond Venice) which has hundreds of thousands of visitors.https://www.ana.it/udine-2023/

We happened to inadvertently arrive in Bergamo many years ago on this weekend and tried to leave as thousands arrived on the last day by train - Trains were arriving every few minutes and it really was an awesome (if difficult) trying to get to our platform against the tide of  humans arriving without any gaps.

It does however show anybody heading fro the area around Trieste.Venice to be prepared for full trains in that area.

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https://partners.italiarail.com/default?force_pass=true&aff=EURAIL&fbclid=IwAR1zG__8EtpSCsza3WI-eFahHfXJqmDhBLIZUyoO5qYeAc8t7fzjgBbTd5A

 

This site is not for Eurail Global Pass.  It is only for interrail

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It is for both.

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