Italy by Train, Vol. 1: three regions made for slow travel
I've always thought that you can taste the soul of a country in its train stations. The big ones like Milano Centrale, but also the tiny unknown ones in the middle of nowhere. When I was younger, sometimes I'd bigiare a scuola (skip class), or simply needed some time alone to think, and one of my favourite things to do (yes, I know, a little strange) was to sit in a train station and watch people. The constant coming and going, lives crossing yours for a second, a glimpse of the book someone is reading, a fragment of a phone call, the morning paper folded under an arm. To me, train stations have always been one of the most honest portraits of a country.
And the trains themselves are how you actually get to see the rest of it. Italy is dotted with thousands of historic borghi, ancient villages scattered through the countryside, many of them just a short train ride from a major city. The slow-tourism conversation has finally reached the small places, and it was overdue: emptier streets, cheaper meals, locals who haven't been worn out by tourism yet.
Over the last few years, I've increasingly chosen trains over cars and, when possible, flights. Knowing I can do it comfortably and affordably in Italy has nudged me to explore corners of the country I'd never visited, and to pick Italy as a destination even when my traveller instinct wanted to take me somewhere else.
And there's the slow part. More and more, I feel the pull (and I'm not the only one, I hear it everywhere, in conversations, in articles) of going back to a slower way of travelling. Not rushing from one Instagram spot to the next, but taking the time to enjoy the stretch between destinations too, because that's often where the most interesting corners hide. The train, in Italy, is the perfect way to do this. You sit by the window, and you watch. Maybe at sunset, the train slipping past little villages where you catch quick scenes of daily life. Same goes for the stations along the way.
These three regions are where I find that feeling most easily. They're not the only ones (more coming in the next volumes), but if you're planning a slow Italian trip and want to leave the rental car keys at the desk, start here. And if you're new to Italian trains and the apps and ticket categories sound like a maze, our no-panic guide to travelling Italy by train covers the logistics. Here, we stick to the where.
Liguria, for the most scenic coastal line
The Ligurian coastal railway doesn't just take you places. It frames them. The train threads through one tunnel after another, and every time you come out, a different miniature world opens up: a stack of pastel houses balanced on a cliff, a tiny harbour with painted boats lined up like a colour swatch, a turquoise cove appearing between two olive trees. You travel close to the sea, sometimes uncomfortably close, then the rock swallows you again.
On this line, the stops do most of the work. You stop at Vernazza, eat a focaccia at the bar with the door open, smell basil from someone's kitchen window. You get back on. You stop at Moneglia: sandy beach, soft light, kids jumping off a pier. You get back on. By the time you reach Levanto, you're already slower than you were this morning, which is the whole point.
Push west and the line quietens down: pastel facades give way to fishing boats hauled up on the winter sand in Laigueglia, and the entroterra hides medieval walled towns like Finalborgo, where time really does pass differently.
Northeast Italy, where Venice is just the start
Most travellers arrive in the Northeast through Milan or Bologna, both about a couple of hours away by high-speed train. From there, the region unfolds like a series of small worlds knit together by the densest rail network in Italy.
You wake up in Venice, with the lagoon outside the window. Half an hour later, you're in Padova, drinking a spritz in a piazza under a Renaissance loggia. An hour after that, you're in Verona, with the Adige curling at your feet. By evening you could be in Trieste, the wind off the Adriatic at your back, watching the ferries leave for the Istrian coast.
You don't unpack and repack. You pick one base (Padova works well, quieter and cheaper than Venice, perfectly placed), and you spend a week in five different Italys.
What we love most is everything between the famous cities. Veneto's plain hides medieval walled borghi like Montagnana, Este and Cittadella, each its own half-day surprise. The same plain holds the Palladian villas and the Riviera del Brenta, a slow universe of their own. North of Venice, the Prosecco hills around Conegliano open up after a short ride and a bus.
And then there's Friuli Venezia Giulia, the corner that's quietly become one of Italy's most interesting destinations. Less travelled than Veneto, with its own language, its own wines (some of the best whites in Italy), its own way of doing things. You step off the train in Udine and the air already feels different: less Italy-Italy, more Mitteleuropa, the cafés older, the rhythms softer. Further north, Venzone sits inside its medieval walls almost untouched.
This is the corner of Italy we know by heart. If you want to go deeper than what fits here, write to us.
Trentino-Alto Adige, for the Dolomites without a car
Take a train from Verona heading north and you watch the landscape change in real time. The plain gives way to vineyards, the vineyards give way to apple orchards, the orchards give way to first foothills and then to the Alps proper. By the time you reach Bolzano, the announcements come in two languages and the bread on the table is Schüttelbrot. You're in Italy, just not the one you packed for.
The Brenner railway is one of the most spectacular Alpine routes in Europe, and you can use it like a ladder. Stop in Trento for the Renaissance castle and the mountain rim, stop in Bolzano for the museums and the bilingual humour, climb higher to Vipiteno where the medieval town feels like an Austrian fairy tale a few stops from the border. Along the way, Egna and Chiusa are small jewels: arcades, pastel facades, a monastery on the hill.
From Bolzano, a different rhythm: the line west climbs to Merano (spa town, wine country) and then deeper into the Val Venosta, through vineyards on glacial moraines and apple orchards, with the Ötztal Alps rising on either side. East, change at Fortezza for the Val Pusteria, where the Dolomites come straight to you, the railway ending where the cable cars begin.
The whole region rewards a slow approach: a base, day trips, a coffee or a Hugo on a wooden terrace. A car isn't needed, and not needing it is exactly part of the pleasure.
This is volume 1 of our Italy by Train series. More regions, more lines, more reasons to leave the rental car keys at the desk, coming in the next volumes.
