Travel Tips Update

http://www.sncf.com/ and http://www.trenitalia.it/ will quote you different prices. You should check both, even if it takes you hours because the SNCF website is the slowest page to load IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

And my honeymoon period with Trenitalia is now officially over too. They refused to accept my (correct) bank card details 3 times and are now demanding 5 different documents to prove that I am me before they will ever accept that bank card on their site again.

So right now I have a one way ticket to Paris and neither site is letting me buy a ticket home.

Things could be worse :-)

A Travel Tip

After many frustrating hours on the internet, I have discovered the following useful fact.

If you want to travel from Italy to anywhere in France, or from France to Italy, do your research at http://www.trenitalia.it/ . While the SNCF site will only tell you about the 2 trains a day that run from Paris direct to Milan at times that no sane person would want to travel, Trenitalia gives you all the options, including journeys with changes in Switzerland and Germany. Even more bizzarely, on the Italian site, you can research journeys from Milan to cities in France other than Paris, while the SNCF appears to believe that no foreigner wants to go anywhere other the capital.

So take heart, mes amis de la France profonde: Paris may be too self-absorbed to acknowledge your existence, but the big hearted Italians still care. Un abbraccio a tutti!