Itineraries, route guides and hidden places for the independent traveller. No hire car, no stress — just Italy at its best, seen from a train window.
Start exploring →
Everything you need to know — from buying tickets to Trenitalia vs Italo. Your first Italian train trip, simplified.
Read the guide → 02How to build a realistic, car-free itinerary in Italy — including which regions connect best by train.
Read the guide → 03Trenitalia vs Italo, regional trains, ferries and city metros — a plain-English guide to every transport option.
Read the guide →
Matera is one of the most extraordinary places in Italy - cave dwellings carved from limestone, an underground cistern the size of a cathedral, and a suspension bridge across a ravine. And entirely reachable without a hire car.
Striped Romanesque churches, a cathedral square among the finest in Tuscany, and a medieval hospital decorated with Della Robbia masterpieces — only 30 minutes from Florence by train, and almost entirely overlooked.
Naples has one of the finest collections of Roman antiquities in the world, a street plan that has barely changed in 2,500 years, and pizza that needs no introduction. The most misunderstood city in Italy - and one of the most rewarding.
Buried Roman cities, an active volcano, islands and Greek temples - no other Italian city offers this density of extraordinary places within reach of public transport. Every major day trip from Naples, covered in one guide.
Sorrento is just over an hour from Naples on the Circumvesuviana - clifftop gardens above the Bay of Naples, lemon groves, and a port that serves as the gateway to Capri and the Amalfi Coast. All without a hire car.
Ischia is larger, greener and more varied than Capri — a volcanic island with thermal pools, vineyards, a medieval castle on a rock and beaches only reachable by boat. A ferry from Naples gets you there in around an hour, and a bus network connects everything without a hire car.