Eurail Italy Pass Saver

In addition to putting money aside well in advance for our housing, we have also bought a short duration Eurail Italy pass that is good for 4 days within 2 months. Because we will always be traveling together, we qualified for the Saver Pass which is valid for groups of 2 to 5 persons traveling together. Similarly, I made reservations for seats on specific trains to ensure we get to where we want to be when we want to be there. The reservations cost money too, but during high travel season, it's the only way to guarantee we'll get seats on a train, or get to sit together. I could have booked each individual leg of the trip separately, but if we lost any one of those tickets, we would have lost the whole price of that trip. This way, if we can make an earlier or later train, we've only lost the nominal price of the reservation--the pass preserves our ticket price. While we are planning on taking additional side trips around Rome and Florence, our transportation between cities (Rome-Pompeii return, Rome-Florence, Florence-Venice) is already taken care of--that's our four days right there. Anything else we decide to do, we'll pay for out of pocket.

Like the AAA Spiral Guide (I mentioned in an earlier post) that gives suggestions what to do in Italy, the inside jacket of the Eurail Pass folder offers a sillier selection, including:

Make gargoyle faces
Sniff out a truffle
Wink at the conductor
Get chased out of town on a goat
Chum for mermaids in the Baltic

Given the opportunity, I would like to do those things. Others, however, seem more realistic:

Miss your stop on purpose
Visit a town you've never heard of
Climb an ancient stairway
Take soccer too seriously
Get lost

I say, Let the journey begin.