Lombardy travel card. Train pass for Italy – InterRail Italy Pass. Metro and commuter trains in Milan
On this trip to Milan I wanted to see the surrounding area. But I decided not to rent a car, but instead took up studying the work of public transport in Lombardy.
Travel cards and tickets
After reading the most detailed descriptions of the work of the Italian railways (http://italia-ru.com/page/poezda-italii, http://talusha.3bb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=19) I decided to also surf the forums . In the comments, I came across a description of the travel card, which is called “io viaggio ovunque lombardia”. Information about this pass was only in Italian. The pass itself turned out to be very profitable. http://www.trasporti.regione.lombardia.it/
It cost 40 euros for a week, and included all public transport in Lombardy, including the metro, trains and some funiculars. So it paid for itself almost the next day. 
Io viaggio ovunque Lombardia is five times cheaper than a travel pass in Italy, but this ticket is only valid if you travel on local trenord lines and within the territory of Lombardy. That is, if you take the train that goes to Bellinzona, then in Bellinzona itself you will already be a hare. It was for this reason that I refused a trip to Lake Maggiore, since Stresa, which is where I wanted to visit, was already outside of Lombardy.
Suburban trains in Lombardy
Of my trips, Cremona was probably the furthest. Moreover, on the way there we had to use a transfer. 
The transfer took place at a station surrounded by freshly cut wheat. The train was a little delayed and the train that went to Cremona was waiting for us, as reported by the announcer in Italian. However, I didn’t hear what platform he was waiting for us on.
I heard platform three first, and since we were standing on it, I thought of staying. But when she saw people running in a different direction, she decided to look around. At the other end of the station (quite far away) I saw a rather shabby train consisting of two cars, and people were running towards it.
We went down into the passage and saw the scoreboard. From the information on it it was clear that the train to Cremona was at a distance. We were the last to run into it, the grandfather - the conductor saw that we were running and was waiting. And then he swore at us for a long time. Of course, we understood little from his words, but from his gestures I understood that my husband, who had a single ticket, did not validate it. 
We smiled stupidly and nodded our heads, to which the conductor said: “if there was a real conductor (not as kind as him), then of course we would be fined, but he would simply write with his hand on the ticket that it was used.” This train ran between small rural villages. The stations were simply platforms with names. Tickets at such stations are sold from the conductor, right on the train.
Milan S-Bahn
The Milan city railway is a kind of analogue of the Paris rer. Unlike French, where you change to the railway. is not particularly difficult - it intersects with many metro stations; in Milan, you need to board these trains at separate stations.
Imagine a station with 20 platforms, and you don’t know which of them the train in the direction you need will arrive at. Which platform the train will arrive at will be displayed on the board 2-3 minutes before departure. That is, in 2 minutes you need to figure out where the desired platform is and run to it. For Italians this is not a problem, they think very quickly and move just as quickly, but I was not comfortable.
Interestingly, the appearance of the train depends on the direction. For example, in Cremona the trains were old and dirty, worse than ours, but in the direction of the lakes (Como) only new trains ran.
If you are planning to conquer Italy by train and are thinking about frequent travel, then this post may be very useful. After all, rather than paying for each ticket from point A to point B, it is much more economical to buy a travel card and forget about problems with tickets for the duration of its validity. That is why today we will talk about the InterRail Italy Pass - a railway pass that can become simply indispensable when planning a trip to the Apennines.
BlogoItaliano already touched on the topic once railways in Italy and, where you can buy train tickets for travel between the largest cities in the Apennines. Now we will consider another option - a travel card InterRail Italy Pass
InterRail Italy Pass
This type of pass is only valid within Italy. Its advantage is the certain degree of flexibility it provides to its owner. So, you can purchase an InterRail Italy Pass, which will allow you to use unlimited trains for 3, 4, 6 or 8 any days within one month.
The price of the option will fluctuate accordingly. So, for example, in 2018 train pass for Italy for 3 days it cost 121 euros, and for 8 days – 243 euros.
If you are under 27 years of age, then you are entitled to a discount, and the same 3-day pass will cost less - 92 euros. There are also more “gentle” tariffs for children aged 4 to 11 years.
Separately, it is worth noting that the prices given apply to travel in II class. But for those who are not ready to compromise, you can always pay a little more and the first class ticket is yours.
In addition to use on trains, the rail pass also provides its holder with a number of additional discounts. Complete list of additional benefits.
InterRail Italy Pass– an option that applies to European residents traveling to other countries of the continent. That is, if you are a resident and citizen of Russia, Ukraine or Belarus, you can use this option.
Residents of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other post-Soviet countries, before purchasing a travel card, it is better to separately check whether it applies to you. It is also important that the InterRail Italy Pass cannot be used if you are the holder of an Italian passport or permanently reside in Italy.
In addition, before boarding the train you may be required to reserve a seat and pay an additional fee. Such fis are quite common in Europe, and their size depends on the country through which you are moving. Directly for Italy, the list of surcharges for reservations is as follows:
Trains Le Frecce /Frecciarossa / Frecciargento / Frecciabianca(routes throughout Italy, formerly called Eurostar Italia)
Reservation cost: 2nd class: €10 / 1st class: €15
InterCity Trains; InterCityNotte, Expresso(seating only)
Reservation required for night trains: 2nd class: €3 / 1st class: €3
And finally, delivery of a travel card purchased online, of course, takes some time and is not free. Therefore, if you are going to Italy and are aiming at using a travel card, then make sure that you have enough time for its delivery (3-4 weeks).
The cost of delivery of a pass to Russia and Ukraine ranges from 11 to 30 euros, depending on the tariff and urgency, which is only an additional argument in favor of early booking.
Have a good trip
Public transport in Milan is well developed and popular with both locals and tourists. The ATM transport system includes buses, trams, metro and trains. There are also city bike rentals and numerous taxis in Milan.
You can plan your route on the Milan city transport website: www.atm.it/it/Giromilano/.
Metro and commuter trains in Milan
The metro - mostly underground - runs both through the city center and in the nearest suburbs. Currently, four lines are operating and one is under construction. Metro stations are designated by the letter "M".
The metro has three lines. "Red" stretches from west to north from Fiera Milano/Bisceglie to Sesto 1° Maggio FS. "Green" from southwest to east from Assago Milanofiori Forum to Gessate. "Yellow" from south to north - from San Donato to Comasina.
S-Bahn trains also run throughout Milan and its suburbs. There are 10 lines:
- S1: Saronno - Milan - Lodi
- S2: Milano Rogoredo - Mariano Comense
- S3: Milano Cadorna - Saronno
- S4: Milano Cadorna - Camnago
- S5: Varese - Milan - Treviglio
- S6: Novara - Milan - Pioltello
- S8: Milano Porta Garibaldi - Lecco
- S9: Saronno - Milan - Albairate
- S11: Milano Porta Garibaldi - Chiasso
- S13: Milano Bovisa - Pavia
Electric trains and trains passing through Milan and its suburbs are also considered urban modes of transport and can be used to move around the city. The main station, Milano Centrale, is the second largest in the country after Rome; there are also two smaller stations - Milano Cadorna and Milano Porta Garibaldi. Suburban trains of the LeNord system only depart from Milano Cadorna station. Trains on the national railway system Trenitalia depart from Milano Centrale and Milano Porta Garibaldi.
Trams, buses and trolleybuses in Milan
Trams in Milan run on 17 routes within the city. One line has also been launched to the suburb of Limbiate. The total length of roads is 115 km. In addition, there are 82 bus routes and 4 trolleybus routes throughout the city. Buses and trolleybuses do not operate on regular routes at night. However, there are several night buses that run from 2:00 to 6:00.
Getting around Milan by ground transport is easy even for a visiting foreigner. The website of the ATM transport system will help you understand the routes and schedules: www.atm.it ..
Tickets can be purchased at stations and kiosks marked with the letter "T". You cannot buy tickets from tram and bus drivers.
A ticket for 1 trip within 90 minutes (transfers are possible) costs 1.5 euros. Travel card for 10 trips - 13.8 euros. A pass for 24 hours from the moment of validation is 4.5 euros, for 48 hours - 8.25 euros.
Prices for public transport tickets
The cost of one trip within 90 minutes after composting is 1.5 euros.
Carnet for 10 trips costs 13.8 euros. Each ticket must be validated before travel. Carnet cannot be used by multiple passengers at the same time.
A BI4 or 4-Journey Integrated Ticket is valid for four journeys, each lasting no more than 90 minutes. The peculiarity of the ticket is that on weekends and holidays it can be used for an unlimited number of trips from morning until 13.00 or from 20.00 until the end of the day.
The 1-day pass is valid for 24 hours after validation. Costs 4.5 euros.
The 2-day pass is valid for 48 hours after validation. Price - 8.25 euros.
The evening ticket is valid for an unlimited number of trips within one day from 20.00 to midnight. Price - 3 euros.
To pay for baggage allowance, you must purchase a special ticket costing 1.5 euros.
Cars in Milan
Getting around Milan by car is not convenient, and in some areas of the city it is completely impossible: travel to some areas of the center of Milan is simply closed. In addition, the city is a member of the European Ecopass system, which imposes a surcharge on vehicles that enter the city and pollute the environment. Thus, Milan is one of the anti-leaders in terms of the number of cars per thousand people.
Apart from the high cost of using a car in Milan, it is also very difficult to find parking spaces in the city. Arriving in Milan from the suburbs, many people prefer to leave their cars in park-and-ride stations near commuter train stations. However, you can enter the center - right up to the so-called Area C, or Cerchia dei Bastioni.
You can leave your car in one of the paid parking lots.
Blue color marks on the city streets indicate places where a car can be parked for a fee and for a limited time. The rules and costs are indicated on the nearest information boards. The paid Sosta Milano ticket must be located under the windshield in a visible place during parking. However, in some places you can pay for parking time via SMS.
You can stop on streets marked yellow only with special permission.
If cars are parked incorrectly or if parking is unpaid, city services have the right to tow the car and issue a fine to the owner. Owners of towed vehicles should contact the Ufficio Rimozioni (Impound Office) at Via Beccaria, 19, telephone 02-77-27-02-80-1.
In addition, Milan has a number of car-sharing systems. The most popular are GuidaMi, Car2go, E-vai, Enjoy, etc.
Taxi in Milan
Traveling around Milan by taxi is not cheap. It is especially worth considering that traffic jams are common in the city during rush hours. Taxis can be ordered in advance for a specific time. If you call to order a taxi for the near future, the operator will tell you how long it will take to get the car to you.
Cycling in Milan
Many locals prefer to get around Milan by bicycle. Tourists can also join them. There are several rental points in the city. The cost for 1 day is about 10 euros.
City tours are also offered on fancy Segways. A 3-hour journey through the most beautiful streets of the city with a guide - from 90 euros.
Tourist transport in Milan
Tourist double-decker buses operate around Milan using a hop on hop off system. Three routes have been developed, each of which lasts 90 minutes non-stop. The routes include visits to the city's most popular attractions. The tour is conducted with the help of an audio guide in Italian, Russian, French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. There are special audio guides for children! One ticket is valid for 48 hours from the moment of validation on all three lines. A ticket for an adult costs 25 euros, for a child from 5 to 15 years old - 10 euros. You can order them on the website
Italy is a convenient country for independent travelers, I will not add the phrase “very convenient”, because I still had several complaints after a specific encounter with the system related to movement along the chosen route and the service of stations.
During preparation, the main assistants, of course, were the international website of the Italian railways http://www.trenitalia.com/
and regional website Railways of Lombardy http://www.trenord.it/it/home.aspx, which is a subsidiary of Trenitalia.
Train tickets can be purchased at station ticket offices, but we must take into account that at small stations there are small stations and ticket offices simply do not exist in them! In this case, you need to take care of the ticket in advance. There were stations like this on my way: Varenna and Pavia Certosa.
But here is a photo of a train station in an ordinary small city, like Lecco, with everything: a ticket office and an information point in one window, a machine for purchasing tickets yourself, to the right of it.
A ticket purchased at the box office is valid for two months, on it you can travel one way from point A to point D, if you wish, go out for a walk at points B or C, but do it within 6 hours, otherwise the carriage will turn into a pumpkin!
On such a ticket only the direction is indicated: the beginning and end of the trip, of course there is no date, no time, no train number, and especially no platform number. If there are transfers, they are indicated on the ticket, but also only the name of the station.
Therefore, it is simply physically necessary to know detailed information on the purchased ticket. To do this, I studied the schedule on railway websites while still at home, and this was an almost nightly task for me in hotel rooms before each trip further along the route.
What I really liked was detailed passenger warning system:
At some stations, mainly in big cities, information is also provided in the following format:
On modern carriages there is also a ticker outside with complete information about the flight. But once there was a case: on the carriage and on the board on the platform there were different train numbers, panic, everyone was fussing, but the time and place of arrival converged. About 5 minutes before departure we finally boarded this train and it went in the right direction.
Tickets can be purchased from special machines, which are available at every Italian train station, even the smallest ones, where there are no ticket offices, at least one machine, but it must be there.
These machines are easily recognizable by the inscription: "Biglietto Veloce/Fast Ticket", which translates as “Fast Ticket,” but to purchase you just need to know a few phrases in Italian-English. At Milano Central, for example, these machines are installed everywhere, visible and invisible. They are also available in a special hall for selling tickets ( biglietteria), there is also directly on the platform.
If the train ticket is Regionale purchased at a cash register or vending machine without specifying the date, time and place, then it must be composted right before planting. Special devices in the form of boxes green,
or yellow
flowers with the inscription Convalida installed at the entrances to platforms, on the platforms themselves and in station buildings, and you just need to insert a ticket into it at one end. The machine prints the time and date of composting on the ticket and makes it valid for travel. If the trip includes a transfer, then in the transfer city there is no need to validate the ticket a second time.
By the way, in some cities on the platforms further than the first one there are no composting machines, remembering that to carry out this procedure you had to return to the station, but what if you are in a hurry and the train is already leaving? There is an inspector and his little hole-punching machine.
Tickets can be purchased online.
This option always suits me the most, because I don’t want to waste time buying them on the road, looking for ticket offices, and especially standing in lines, but to buy a ticket on the website Italian Railways http://www.trenitalia.com/ you need to register on it first. I read that you can buy tickets without registration, but it didn’t work out for me, perhaps this is outdated information.
A million different articles have been written and rewritten about the site itself, about registration, buying tickets, I’ve convinced myself, but it takes time until you find the information you need. In my advice, I will only highlight those positions that caused me difficulties. On the English tab of the Training Register we enter all the required information. When we get to the information in the window: in English this is Tax code / VAT*, and in Italian codicefiscale, we use the auxiliary link http://codicefiscale.it/. Having entered the required data there, we get a code consisting of letters and numbers and duplicate it in the required window in Register.
In the requested address box we put the address of the hotel where we will stay; if there are several of them, we write the address of the first one, write the phone number starting with +7.
My trip involved traveling only on regional trains, but on Italian websites there is one caveat: tickets for regional trains begin to be sold only 7 days before the trip. Therefore, I threw just a few tickets into the cart (the principle of an online store), emailed to me. I received all the ticket files in one email, I printed them out and took them with me. Each ticket is on 1 sheet of A4 format.
Tickets purchased online for regional trains are already confirmed and do not need to be validated, this is another plus. But their duration is reduced: not 6 hours, but only 4, and it begins from the departure time of the train selected when booking. And another huge plus: online tickets contain almost all the necessary information - date, time, train number. At the station you will only have to look at the platform number.
That is, you can see with the naked eye how convenient a ticket purchased online is.
Ticket inspectors check tickets on trains often, but somehow it is systematized, that is, if the controller went through the train once, and the trip was long, then I don’t remember that he passed a second time, although there are many stations and passengers were boarding all the time.
I also bought tickets for Trenitalia on the Trenitalia website, this also applies to the box office: when I needed to buy several tickets at once further along the route, then at the same box office I bought both for Trenitalia and Trenord trains at the same time.
throughout Lombardy - the provinces of Milan, Monza, Como, Vigevano, Lecco, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua, Lodi, Cremona, Pavia and Varese, as well as Piacenza, which is not included in Lombardy, but only if you enter from Milan and Lodi.
The quality of trains does not depend on the company: Trains are double-decker,
and the compositions of Trenitalia are old and well-worn. But each train has soft seats and toilets. To enter/exit the carriage, you must either press a button or press a lever (this is for older trains).
In the new trains, each carriage has screens with information about the next station and dubbing is heard on the radio,
and in the older ones you go to yourself - where to get off, when? Therefore, in such cases, all control should be left to yourself and it is necessary to monitor the time of arrival at the desired station and read its name on the platform.
If I remember anything else, I’ll add it.