Travelling to Italy
We organise the villa and apartment holiday accommodation element for your vacation in Italy as an independent traveller. Our company does not offer tours or packages including the flight and car hire element, nor do we offer packages including excursions. The reason for this is simple: our customers are independent people that want to experience the real Italy and explore the country for themselves. This factor coupled with the large growth in low cost flights and the huge option of car hire, means that it is more flexible and nearly always cheaper to book the flights and car hire separate to the accommodation.
To assist in putting your total holiday together we provide you with the information and links to be able to select the flights and car hire and other things necessary to get your own 'custom made' holiday suitable to your needs.
There are a variety of ways to travel to Italy for your vacation depending on where you want to go, the travel time, budget, comfort, number of people and your other individual requirements. The main methods of travel are:
• By Air with, or without, car hire when you arrive. This English speaking tourists (UK, America, Australia, New Zealand.) travel this way.
• By Road, generally with your own car. This way of reaching Italy is increasingly prefered by independent travelers who want to make their holiday an adventure.
• By Rail, either by taking your own car on the train through France (can be expensive!), or by hiring a car and/or using local transport at the destination.
By Air
Flying to Italy is the quickest method of getting there and car hire can be quite cheap if you shop around. However, it can still take most of a day to get fromyour home to your holiday accommodation.
There are a variety of UK airports and several airlines which can get you directly to a range of Italian airports and final destinations. Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester, Luton and other airports have direct flights. As alternative to British Airways and Alitalia (the national carriers), there is also Ryanair and a number of other low cost airlines which all fly directly. Click here to find out more about the airlines and airports.
In general, the smaller airports are less busy and therefore work out cheaper due to lower landing taxes, as they are trying to attract business into their cities. Thus, flying to Pisa tends to cost less than flying to Florence. Car hire from Pisa can also often be less costly than at Florence. So it can sometimes be worth travelling a little further in your hired car than pay the higher airfares.
Here are some websites where you can check the availability and price of flights. We recommend that you consider a selection convenient to your home and destination locations, and then check the availability of your chosen villa or apartment, and then book as far in advance as possible.
British Airways - UK national carrier
Alitalia - Italian national carrier
flights4less – low cost site
Travellersweb - A site that searches for the best options for both flights and car hire
Ryanair - Low cost airline
By Road:
Driving to Italy can be a lot of fun and a great adventure especially for a family, especially if you have 2 or 3 weeks available. You can either enjoy a leisurely trip each way with several stopovers in some fantastic locations that will give memories for a lifetime, or you can drive in the minimum time by following the various motorways . We recommend that you leave 2 full days to reach Tuscany or Umbria from the UK. Certainly, if there are several people (a family or several couples), then travelling by car becomes more economical and environmentally friendly.
Whether going to Italy by car is cheaper than flying depends on how well you search for cheap airfares, particularly out of season. It should also be remembered that Northern Italy is only a few hours drive from the South of France and therefore easily accessible. By contrast, getting to the south of Italy takes quite a lot longer as it is a very long country!
Travelling to Italy by road (or rail) necessitates a ferry crossing, from one of the UK South or East coast ports, or using the Channel Tunnel near Dover. The shortest and quickest route to France is the Channel Tunnel. However, if you live further away from the South East then you may prefer to go by ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland. This is a 3 1/2 hour high speed ferry crossing during the day and a 6 to 7 hour crossing at night. Alternatively you can exit the UK from Portsmouth to Caen. The destination port will determine whether it is better to travel down through France (Toll motorways) or Germany and Switzerland.
To help you get across the sea to mainland Europe here are some useful links:
Channel Tunnel - Channel Tunnel crossing
Cheapest Ferry Crossings - all ferry crossings
P&O - Ferry Crossings from Dover
Stena Line - Ferry crossings from Harwich
Road Directions
It will take about 2 full days of driving to reach the North to Middle of Italy from the UK and a further day to get to the south; and that is some serious driving ! This traveling time should be taken into consideration when planning your trip in addition to the fact that most holiday villa and apartment changeovers take place on a Saturday. For people used to travelling to the South of France, you need to allow another half-day to reach, say, Tuscany.
Most people take the fastest and most direct system of Motorways to go on holiday. In France, these are mostly Toll roads and can be busy in the high season. If you have a little more time you could take the national (N) routes and enjoy more of the scenery. The main route from Calias is the E15/E17 (A26) to Reims, & Troyes, the E17/54 (A5) and E17/21 (A31) to Dijon, the A39 and 40 (E21/62) to near Geneva, the A40 (E25) across the border to Aosta and into Italy.
Another interesting and speedy option is to travel down the Western side of Germany from Hoek van Holland and following one of the numerous (untolled, high speed in places) motorways towards Switzerland and Italy. An example would be to pick up the A3 in Germany and follow it to near Frankfurt, then switch to the A5 (E35) and follow this all the way to the Swiss border at Basel, crossing Switzerland on the E35 and coming out into Italy near Como. There is an annual motorway toll of about £20 for using the motoways in Switzerland. Also, when travelling in Germany take care to avoid the big city areas at rush hour particularly in the Ruhr (near Duisberg, Essen and Duesseldorf).
We recommend the well tried and tested AA and RAC who both have excellent directions and route maps. The Michelin site also has very extensive European maps and directions:
AA - Automobile Association
Michelin
RAC - Royal Automobile Club
Please also remember your breakdown cover and insurance as well!
By Rail:
Only a minority of people travel by Rail from the UK to Italy because of the complexity, time and due to the different national systems. There is the additional issue of often needing transport locally when you have arrived. Nevertheless, the fast TGV (up to 300 km/hour) in France can make the journey very quickly. This is also a very relaxing and environmentally friendly way to travel especially if you take bikes (or hire at the other end) and/or use public transport in Italy.
Going to Italy by train is a little more complicated since it usually requires linking a number of stages: in England to a Eurostar terminal, Eurostar through the channel tunnel and via TGV across France, and then a train into Italy. The best way to organise a train journey is to book the complete journey with one booking agency if possible; although this is easier said than done! (A travel agent may help here). There are also some pan European routes that have fixed daily departures such as from Hoek van Holland (ferry from Harwich) to Milan.
You may also take your car on the train but this can prove expensive and you may be wiser to hire a car when you arrive in Italy. There are some packages that offer this combination as well as a number of days travel by train within Italy.
To assist you in finding the best solution to meet your needs we have put together a number of useful links:
The Train Line - UK train travel
TGV - France high speed train travel
TrenItalia - Italian train travel
Rail Europe - Pan-European travel alternatives
Local Maps Italy
At the final stages of arriving at your holiday villa or apartment in Italy is useful to have access to some good maps and directions. We recommend that you use any combination of the following sites which are all equally good:
Michelin
AA - Automobile Association
RAC - Royal Automobile Club
