Authentic Italy organises villa and apartment holiday accommodation in Italy for the independent traveller; we do not organise the travelling component of the holiday. However, it is our aim to make organising your holiday as simple and effective as possible. For this reason we have compiled this section, with all the necessary links to other sites, to enable you to organise your complete vacation.

There are a variety of ways to travel to Italy for your holiday dependent on the location, travel time, cost, comfort, number of people and personal wishes. The main methods are:

• By Air with, or without, car hire when you arrive. This is the main method used by most British tourists to Italy.
• By Road, generally with your own car. This method of reaching Italy is increasingly favoured by independent travellers
• By Rail, either taking your own car on the train through France (Can be expensive!), or with hiring a car/using local transport at the destination.

By Air

Travelling by Air is the quickest method and car hire can be quite cheap if you shop around. Still, it can take most of a day to get from door-to-door. A variety of UK airports and several airlines can get you directly to a range of Italian airport destinations. Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Luton and other airports have direct flights. Besides British Airways and Alitalia (the national carriers), Ryanair, Go and a number of other low cost airlines all fly directly. Click here to find out which airlines / airports fly to which Italian airports.

Generally the smaller airports, which are less busy, work out cheaper due to lower landing taxes and trying to attract business. Thus, flying to Pisa tends to cost less than flying to Florence. Car hire from Pisa is also often cheaper than at Florence. So it may well be worth travelling a little further (if at all) in your hired car than pay the higher airfares.

We have selected a number of web-sites where you can check the availability and cost of flights for, and to, airports of your choice. We recommend that you look at a selection convenient to your home and destination locations, and then check the availability and book as far in advance as possible, together with your chosen villa/apartment.
Travellersweb - A site that searches for the best options for both flights and car hire
Ryanair - Low cost airline
British Airways - UK national carrier
Alitalia - Italian national carrier
flights4less

By Road

Driving to Italy can be fun and more adventurous, particularly if you have 2 or 3 weeks available. You can either enjoy a leisurely trip each way with several stopovers, or drive in the minimum time. 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. However, whether this 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.

Travelling to Italy by road (or rail) requires a ferry crossing, from one of the UK South/East coast ports, or using the Channel Tunnel near Dover. In fact, most road travellers prefer to use the ferry crossing or tunnel from Dover to Calais. This is because it is the shortest, and quickest route to get to Europe. However, if you live further away from the South East then you may prefer to use 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 assist you in selecting your route to cross 'the water' we have provided the following links:
Channel Tunnel - Channel Tunnel crossing
P&O - Ferry Crossings from Dover
Stena Line - Ferry crossings from Harwich
Cheapest Ferry Crossings - all ferry crossings

Road Directions
It will take about 2 full days of driving to reach the North to Middle of Italy from the UK; this needs to be taken into consideration when planning your trip as well as the fact that most villa/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 fast/direct system of Motorways. 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.

A good alternative 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).

The AA and RAC both have excellent directions and route maps and are highly recommended. Please look at the sections titled 'Route' on the following sites:
AA - Automobile Association
RAC - Royal Automobile Club

Please also remember your breakdown cover and insurance as well !

By Rail

Relatively few people travel by Rail from the UK to Italy due to the different national systems. Nevertheless, the fast TGV (up to 300 km/hour) in France can make the journey very quick once you are on board ! This is a very environmentally friendly way to travel especially if you take bikes (or hire at the other end) and/or use public transport in Italy.

Travelling by train is a little more complicated since it may require joining up a number of stages: in the UK 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 whole trip from source to destination through the one booking agency if possible; although this is easier said than done ! (A travel agent may help here). There are some cross European routes that have fixed daily departures such as from Hoek van Holland (ferry from Harwich) to Milan.

It is also possible to take your car on the train but this can prove expensive and you may be better 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.

At this stage there do not appear to be any preferred routes and it is necessary to shop around and look at alternatives. To help you find the right solution 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

To assist you in finding your booked villa or apartment accommodation on the local roads in Italy, to travel around the local area, and generally to get around in Italy we recommend that you visit the AA or RAC sites and obtain a route planner. In addition, it would be very worthwhile to invest in purchasing a good scale road map of Italy through one of these sites or a book shop.
AA - Automobile Association
RAC - Royal Automobile Club

It is difficult to find a web-site that covers all the regions of Italy with quality road maps that can be viewed and downloaded free of charge. We have however given the link below (albeit not in English!) that gives reasonable maps of all the regions and main towns of Italy even if the road numbers are not present !
Stay in Italy