Meeting Your Trip in SPOLETO

This page offers help (concrete or informational) on reaching your trip. Topics include...

1. Where you Join Your Trip (see immediately below)
2. Our “Access Packages,” designed to help you to do so.
3. Suggestions on how to time your trip to the trip, whether you are having us arrange your travel, or doing it yourself.
4. Service information regarding train travel to your trip start location.
5. Suggested pre-trip visits, especially when these are not geographically obvious, but are rendered economical and convenient by direct rail connections.
6. Hopefully helpful hints for those setting up their own travel to the trip.

If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.

1. WHERE and WHEN Do You Join Your Trip?

Your trip meets at our Spoleto hotel, Sunday afternoon.

We will send you details of meeting time and place with your final itinerary.

If you wish to make your own way to the trip (in other words, not to set up your travel arrangements through us), hints on getting there are offered at the bottom of this page.


2. Our ACCESS PACKAGES
as of January 31, 2010

Our “Access Package” includes a rail ticket from Rome to Spoleto.
Tickets from the airport to central Rome may be purchased at additional cost.

Our London Access Package includes an overnight train from London.


Base (Starting) Access Package Price:  18€.
To see what this means in your currency, look here: http://www.bluemarble.org/CurrencyConv.html
Availability is guaranteed until 10 days prior to trip start (payment received by us).  Within 10 days, availability must be confirmed, and costs may be slightly higher.  Some extra-cost options have higher prices if ordered w/in 35 days.

Included:

• 2nd cl. train tickets to Spoleto from Rome’s Termini station, by “regular” train.
• A printed schedule / itinerary, highlighting any connections.
• Our “Route Sheet to the Trip,” helping you through your journey.
  

Options Offered at an Extra Cost (subject to availability)
Prices are in addition to the “Base” Access Package Price. 
For a general discussion of train upgrades, see here.  Topics include the relative comfort of first versus second class, and different types of accommodation available on overnight trains.

• Extra cost of tickets from the airport:  11€.
  Valid for a ticket on the shuttle train into Rome, where you catch your train to Spoleto.
  
  
• Extra cost of a “Eurostar Italia” express train:  10€.
  See Service Information, below, to see whether the schedule you are contemplating involves this type of express train.  Editorial:  on this route, the express only saves 10 minutes.  Take it if its schedule suits you, but don’t re-order your world to catch one....
  
  
• Saturday night hotel in Florence, breakfast, and Sunday train to Spoleto:  +119€ single, +85€ double or twin.
  See our Italian City Hotel warning before you book :-)
  Additional nights in Firenze, beyond the first:  90€ single, 66€ / person double or twin.
  
  
• Saturday night hotel in Rome, buffet breakfast, and Sunday train to Spoleto from there:  +109€ single, +79€ / person double or twin.
  See our Italian City Hotel warning before you book :-)
  Additional nights in Rome, beyond the first:  95€ single, 72€ / person double or twin.
  
  
• Train tickets from Milan or Venice (include required seat reservations):  +85€.
  If not travelling via Rome, +65€.   The Rome route is generally fastest and easiest:  saves an hour and a connection.  But there are geographically shorter routes that cost less, though they sometimes require an additional change of train.
  
  
• Train tickets from Florence (without hotel):  +35€.
  
  
• First class train tickets (in lieu of 2nd class):  +10€ from Rome, +19€ from Florence, +32€ from Milan or Venice (discount rate of +19€ sometimes available).
  
  
• “Leonardo Express” tickets for the airport train from Rome’s Fiumicino Airport to Termini Station: 15€.
  We actually do not recommend that you buy these from us.  Tickets are only good for the train you select, and for trains departing within 90 minutes of that one.   They are not refundable.  So... if your flight is 2 hours late, you just threw away 15€ (try boarding anyway in this case:  our bet is that the conductors on this line are not going to enforce the rule).  Plus, you can buy them locally for 12€.  Though you will probably miss a train while you wait in line to do so, that may be the best option.  Still, if you want the convenience....
  

Alternate Arrangements, in lieu of our usual packages (subject to availability).
Prices are complete (in other words, they are not in addition to the “Base” Access Package Price).

• Tickets from London.  199€ if you are also purchasing tickets back to London, 239€ if not, or if you prefer a changeable return (for 1st class on the ”Eurostar” from London to Paris, add 49€ to either price; 1st class tickets include meal service).
  
  
• Saturday overnight trains from France, Austria, Germany:  129€, including couchette (“Comfort Couchette” and sleeping car upgrades are available:  +29€ to “Comfort Couchette,” +49€ to a private double sleeper cabin, +99€ to private single cabin).

3. TIMING Your Trip

If we may influence your thinking on the topic of timing... Spoleto is interesting, and arriving in time to fit out your cycle will let you test your legs before the “real” ride tomorrow.  If you have the flexibility to do so, try to schedule your arrival by early afternoon.


4. Service Information
Schedules are approximate – exact timetables can be consulted at
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/point_to_point/triprequest.htm.
Best trains are mentioned. Others are slower or have multiple connections.

• From Rome.  Travel time is 1’25” by express, 1’35” by local.  There are very few morning trains:  a 7:45a local, then a circuitous route at 10a involving an express, a connection, an extra hour, and an additional 10€ fare.  Starting at 1p, trains run hourly. 
  Taking a ticket on the 1p local may be the best strategy:  it may be used on locals at 2p or 4p without modification.
  There is an express at 1:30p, if you like the concept.
• From Milan.  Fastest trains take circa 5 hours, with a connection in Rome.  Service is every two hours.
  The best combination of fast and economical are 7-hour, single-connection services at 6:30a and 9:30a, or 2-connection trains at 11a, 1p and 3p.
  There is a single direct train at 6p, with a midnight arrival in Spoleto.
  
• From Paris, Gare de Bercy.  Depart at 7p on Saturday evening, arrive Spoleto at noon, via Florence.
• From Munich or Vienna....  Overnight via Rome or Florence.
• From Geneva or Zurich:  service every two hours, 10-hour total trip via Milan and Rome.
• From London.  Depart at 3p London time to connect to night train in Paris.

5. Suggested PRE-TRIP VISITS

Any of the Italian cities, obviously....  We can set up train tickets from Venice, Florence, Sicily....


6. Hints on TRAVELLING INDEPENDENTLY to the Trip
Guests subscribing to an “Access Package” need not read this section.

See also “Timing Your Trip” and “Service Information,” above, as either of these may additionally help.

We gladly provide travel consulting (schedule or routing information) concerning pre-trip individual travel.  In particular, we have invested a great deal to become railway experts.  Our service fees are reasonable:  a 20€ charge for all but the most complex projects – or the most simple (for instance, only a 10€ charge applies if the service is limited to the preparation of a routine rail ticket).  You will generally find them well-justified by the time they will save you in research, standing on line, overpaying for your tickets, or all three.

But, for some, this type of research is fun, and / or spending a little extra on the ticket is no big deal.  So, here are some hints, intended to start off hardened “do-it-yourselfers.”

Trains.  Schedules for all routes can be consulted on this web site:
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/point_to_point/triprequest.htm

Spoleto is on the main line from Rome to Ancona, on the Adriatic coast.  Trains run infrequently on weekend mornings, but then hourly.  Both local and express services exist:  expresses are faster, obviously, but also more expensive, and there is not much difference in travel times.

Planes.  Rome’s Fiumicino (the main, international airport) is the closest intercontinental airport.
Perugia (served by Ryanair from London) is just a bit more than an hour away.  Other Ryanair / “low cost” airports in the region are Ancona (2 - 2.5 hours by train), or Rome Ciampino.  None of these are linked to their town centers by train.


If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.