Livorno Travel Forum

I will be in Italy soon and one of my stops is the port in Livorno. I want to make it to Florence and visit the Chianti region (I will take a tour from Florence with a guide). I need to know which is better, bus or train. Also, if it takes a train about an hour to get there, how long will it be in the bus? What is the difference in price between the two? How late do the buses run? How do I know which one to take? My tour will be over around 7:30 at night and I need to get back to the port in Livorno. THANKS for all the help.

1. The website for the national rail service is www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html . Here you can get schedules and pricing.

2. From Livorno Centrale to Florence (usually Firenze Santa Maria Novella, the main station) is a trip of about 1.5 hours, with no changes.

3. You'll have to get from the docks to Livorno Centrale, which is a kilometer or more (I forget - perhaps someone like Chiara who lives there will remind us).

4. There is 1 train an hour, will a few more early in the morning, probably before you can get there. There is a train that departs Livorno at 08:11 (arr 09:33), and another that departs at 09:11 (arr 10:33). Are these trains good enough timewise?

5. There is a train that departs Florence at 17:37 (arr 19:22) - could you catch that? The next train is at 18:27 (arr 19:49). You could certainly catch this, but isn't after 19:00 too late for reboarding your cruise?

6. I don't know about buses, but www.viamichelin.com reports that the trip from Livorno to Florence would be 1.5 hours by car, so a bus would be no faster and probably slower than the train.

Bill