Italy Cars

Italy’s vast and growing network of train tracks and the generally low price for train travel means that getting around Italy by train is almost always going to be your best bet. It’s fast and efficient – barring Italy’s sporadic but all-too-regular train strikes – and even most smallish towns seem to have a train station.

There are, however, times when getting around Italy by bus is the better (or only) alternative, even if you’re not straying too far from the beaten path. One of the places where it’s easier and faster to use the bus is Siena – especially if you’re going from Florence to Siena, but almost no matter where you’re traveling from. There are other places in Italy, too, that either don’t have a train station or where bus connections are more plentiful, so planning on a few bus trips isn’t a bad idea when you’re in Italy.

Unfortunately, there’s no national bus network in Italy the way there’s a national train network – so figuring out bus travel in Italy isn’t always terribly straightforward.
Getting to/from Italy by Bus – From Another Country

Because the European backpacker circuit has long included Italy, there are still cheap ways to get from country to country in Europe – and the train is only one of them. In Italy, trains remain inexpensive enough for most backpackers, but in other countries the price of a train ticket means that the most serious budget travelers choose the bus instead. And for getting between countries, it can be a really economical option.

A couple of routes which may be of interest to you are getting from Paris to Rome and getting from Lyon to Milan.

There are a few companies which run multi-country bus routes, including Eurolines and Busabout. The former offers point-to-point travel between countries, the latter offers organized bus tours of various destinations. Eurolines will get you from one country to another, but although there may be multiple stops in one country it’s not designed for getting you from one region of a country to another. Busabout, while designed as package tours, does call itself a hop on/hop off tour.