Lucca Travel Forum

I will be staying in Lucca for a week and then flying home to Australia from Milan on a 4pm flight. Can anyone advise me how long it would take to get from Lucca to Milan by train? Should I leave Lucca the previous day and stay in Milan or is there time to travel from Lucca (or even Florence)that day?

This is my first trp to Italy and I will be unfamiliar with the trains, airport and language, so it may take me a little bit longer to do everything!

On weekdays (I haven't checked to see if Sunday is different), it's going to take you some 4.5 hours to get to Milan. www.trenitalia.com is showing that most solutions are through connections in Prato or Florence.

For example, you can leave Lucca at 7:30 a.m. on a regional train (3029), arrive in Florence at 8:52 a.m., then leave Florence at 9:14 a.m. on a Eurostar (9428), and arrive in Milan at 12:00 noon. From the Milan train station, you can catch a frequent bus that runs to Malpensa airport (I assume that's the one you want), which will take another hour or so, putting you at the airport before 1:30 p.m.

There's a later solution that's the same trip (regional train leaves Lucca at 8:32 a.m., and Eurostar arrives in Milan at 1:00 p.m.), which is surely as late as you want to try this.

There are earlier solutions as well, including at least one through Genova. Please look at www.trenitalia.com for solutions, so you can become familiar with your options.

Note that the Eurostar (and the ICPlus, if you use one) requires reservations. Since it is important that you get on a specific train (because later in the day may not work for you), you will want to make the decision on when and how you are going early in the week in Lucca and go to the train station or a travel agency and buy the ticket with reservation, even though the odds of it selling out are not high.

As for luggage, you will have to carry it all yourself on the trains; can you do that? As for the bus in Milan, the luggage is stowed by the driver under the bus.

Bill

Thanks Bill

It sounds as though the trip is theoretically possible, although I am not sure if I would like to risk a missed connection or late train. What is your opinion? I am actually leaving form Linate airport, so that should make my trip to the airport a lot shorter.

True, Linate is a much shorter bus or taxi ride from Milano Centrale, although I didn't expect a trip to Australia to start at Linate...;-)

Well, it all depends on how risk adverse you are. If you go that morning, you should aim to go to Florence, because there are Eurostars running from Florence to Milan about every hour. This means that even if you miss the connection in Florence, there'll be another fast train in an hour (if not sooner).

For example, leave Lucca at 06:09, arrive in Florence at 07:52, leave Florence at 08:14, and arrive in Milan at 11:00. Next solution would be the one I mentioned: leave Lucca at 07:31, arrive in Florence at 08:52, leave Florence at 09:14, and arrive in Milan at 12:00. The next one after that is leave Lucca at 08:32, arrive in Florence at 09:52, depart at 10:14 and arrive in Milan at 13:00...so if you try for the early trains, once you get to Florence, you will get to Milan, short of a rail disaster or general strike (which they will know about in Lucca when you get your reservations for the Florence to Milan segment several days in advance). This is why God made travel agents - to tell you about these things, since strikes are well planned out in advance in Italy...and also some trains run anyway, and the travel agent will know that, too.

Here is a list of travel agents in Lucca as provided by the Trenitalia website (this means that they sell FS or Trenitalia tickets):
Name of Agency Address Telephone Fax
ACITOUR TRAVEL VIA A. CATALANI, 59 0583505478 0583505460
ANGELINI VIAGGI P.ZA S. MICHELE, 45 0583493654 058391441
DESIRADE VIAGGI Piazza Curtatone, 153 0583496658 0583496718
LUCAROTTI VIAGGI VIA BUONAMICI 274 0583418283 0583418697
LUCCA BOOKSHOP Piazza S. Maria, 35 0583919931 0583469964

Just stop by one while you are in Lucca, tell them what you want, and let them set you up...note that people at travel agencies are also more likely to speak English - another bonus...

Or just go up the night before to Milan...;-)

Bill