Bikes on trains in Italy?

[jefftala]

I'm planning a trip through Europe, and my last 500K or so has me arriving in Bari by ferry and slowly making my way to Rome (for my flight home).

The trip is 8 weeks, and I'm using my last week as wiggle room; i.e., if I have time to bike from Bari to Rome, I will. But if I spent more time doing other stuff, I will hop on a train from Bari to Rome.

I assumed I'd be able to do this, but I was just reading this CGOAB where they mention there's no bike friendly local trains that do this route, and the Eurostar requires me to pack my bike.

I'm flying from Canada and was just going to use the supplied bike bag, so I won't really be able to "pack my bike".

Any suggestions would be great! I'm not sure what to do, help

 

[andym]

Jeff

Re-read the post: actually he says there are no local trains that do the whole of the route (it's a long way!).

"The problem is there are no local trains all the way from Rome to Bari and only the local trains have bike cars where you do not have to check the bike and have it packed up."

So, presumably, you could get a train a part of the way and then another train - repeat as necessary. [EDIT: see below]

I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment so I'm going to stick up some links to pages in Italian (there may be English versions) on the FFSS Trenitalia website. Summary is that local, suburban and regional trains should be OK (and have a big bike icon on them) while for national trains like the (Italian) Eurostar 'Red Arrow' you need a bag. I don't know whether there are national services with bike-carriage facilities.

In treno con la bici - sui treni Regionali e Urbani

In treno con la bici.

http://www.trenitalia.com/cms-file/allegati/trenitalia/in_regione/Guida_Bicintreno.pdf

EDIT: you can find suitable trains if you look on the DeutscheBahn website (yes, really). Check, 'further options' and then when the advanced search screen comes up, check the 'bike carriage required' radio button. A search on a random date suggests you can do it leaving Bari Centrale at 8.17 in the morning and arriving at Roma Termini nearly 11 hours, and a couple of changes, later. There's one later but even less convenient train. Or, as you need to go via Napoli, you could always break your journey and spend a bit of time there.

 

[rich p]

Andy's covered it but just to add that in my limited experience of taking local trains in Italy (three times) on journeys of 50 miles or so the experience was a pleasure.
Nobody minded the laden bikes, the station master came and showed us how to cross the rails and he even radioed the driver to expect us! The guard helped us on and off with the bikes (a big step down).
Other countries take note

 

[TheDoctor]

The 'supplied bike bag' will probably be all you need. Certainly on TGVs and Eurostar if the bike is bagged, it'll be fine. It's slightly involved, but if you get both wheels off, saddle down and bars turned, then stick it in any sort of bag, you should be OK. You're after getting it to a size that'll go on a luggage rack - about 120cm by 90 cm - and not cover other peoples stuff with oily cr@p.

 

[xilios]

Andy's covered it but just to add that in my limited experience of taking local trains in Italy (three times) on journeys of 50 miles or so the experience was a pleasure.
Nobody minded the laden bikes, the station master came and showed us how to cross the rails and he even radioed the driver to expect us! The guard helped us on and off with the bikes (a big step down).
Other countries take note

Same here, the service was equal to German trains, even beter because the Italian trains were older and not much space for bikes but the conductor's made up with their help

 

[jefftala]

Glad to hear how friendly and helpful the Italian conductors and other train staff are! Very encouraging, thanks for the feedback everyone.

Andym: the DeutscheBahn website is truly excellent, thx for pointing me there! Tempting to spend time in Naples as you suggest, but again it depends on the rest of my trip.

The trip is 8 weeks and roughly looks like this:

Netherlands - France (Paris)
Paris - Chambery (near Lyon)
Chambery - Torino, Milan, then east to the coast where I take a ferry to Croatia.
Croatia - island hopping down to Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik - Bari
Bari - Rome

I have family in the Netherlands, Paris, and Chambery, so am not sure exactly how long I will be staying there. My island hopping in Croatia may well eat up the rest of my remaining time, depends on how much fun I'm having

 

[andym]

It's difficult. I can understand that if you're coming from Canada, you want to cover as much ground as you can, but on the other hand don't try to do too much. You could easily spend 8 weeks exploring one part of France or Italy.

Chambéry is a lovely little city BTW.

 

[jefftala]

Yes, I've been lucky enough to have visited a couple of times. I have a cousin who lives in the nearby mountains overlooking the entire valley, truly awesome.

I've used Google Maps to provide a rough line of my route for this curious.

 

[rich p]

You, of course, may have a reason to visit Paris but personally I'd be inclined to give it a miss and instead I'd be tempted to head south from Belgium to go through Luxembourg which was a lovely little country.