For those who have traveled to Italy and around Italy

---

Posted by cateydee

it depends on what part of italy you go to but in florence and rome, tons of people speak english. plus if you talk with your hands, they understand lol

---

ITA!

i have never been there but my sister, cousin & uncle went last year for 20 days. how they survived i have no idea. none of them speak Italian except for a few very simple things.

all i know is that while in Sicily they had a car & it was a disaster. firstly they had to get one with a manual transmission. my uncle had not drove one in about 10 years so for the first couple of days my sister had bad nausea in the car. the other issue with this was that my sister & cousin couldn't drive at all to give my uncle a break. also my cousin was forced to have to read the map & this usually ended up in an argument & crying because she was so confused.

---

Posted by christine2010

i have never been there but my sister, cousin & uncle went last year for 20 days. how they survived i have no idea. none of them speak Italian except for a few very simple things.

all i know is that while in Sicily they had a car & it was a disaster. firstly they had to get one with a manual transmission. my uncle had not drove one in about 10 years so for the first couple of days my sister had bad nausea in the car. the other issue with this was that my sister & cousin couldn't drive at all to give my uncle a break. also my cousin was forced to have to read the map & this usually ended up in an argument & crying because she was so confused.

---

Hi there,

What we did was buy a train ticket online while back in the US (I think it was for any 4 days of travel within a 1-month period). Once you're in Italy, you have the option of going early to the train station (either that day or a few days earlier) to 'reserve' a particular train departure and seat (let's say, you know you want the 9am train). Each reservation cost somewhere in the ballpark of $10-$15. Or, you could not get a reservation and take your chances that an open seat will be available for you on the train you want. We did both ways, and both ended up fine.

We did this: we flew into Rome and immediately took train to Florence (train trip #1). We stayed in Florence for 6 days, but we did an overnight to Venice somewhere in the middle - left early one morning and came back late the next day (train trips #2 and 3), keeping our hotel room in Florence, so we sort of double-paid hotel rooms one night. We then took the train back to Rome (train trip #4) and stayed there a few days before returning to the States. The train stations were clean, well-lit, and easily marked. The bathrooms in the stations are usually pay-per-use so make sure you hve some coins on you to put into the turnstyle! They are very clean though!

We found the least amount of English speaking people in Rome, which surprised me, but we were still able to get by on basic Italian phrases! I've been to some other spots in Italy - Bari and Naples - and while they are beautiful, they might be a little overwhelming to a first-time Italy traveller. The Lakes area is supposed to be beautiful; that was one of our honeymoon finalists!

FM me if you want any more information!

You will be fine traveling by train in Italy. Most everyone speaks English. I would, however, tell you to buy first class train tickets. The difference in price isn't all that great and you definitely get a little bit better service and more comfortable seats.

It's a great way to see the countryside!

You're going to love Italy!