jb12

I was thinking of getting a train from Florence to Montecatini. It's a direct train with a few stops. But now train only goes to Pistoia and then you have to take a bus and switch again to train to get to Montecatini Centro. Any suggustion to use public transportation to get from Firenze SMN to Montecatini Centre?

PWMTrav

I don't see direct train service anymore. Might be something going on with the tracks. In any case, there's a direct bus:

http://www.blubus.it/indice-linee.html

The line you want is R003, Linea Firenze-Montecatini A11, on the bottom right column of that page.

I haven't actually taken a Blubus before so I can't tell you much about them. Looks like it'll be 5 euro each way.

jb12

One problem from Blubus is getting there from Firenze SMN. It looks like almost impossible walk or taking taxi cab or trolley

PWMTrav

I don't think you're looking at the right thing. The route originates at Largo Alinari, right across from Firenze SMN:

https://goo.gl/maps/St8jP8LGbPk

Were you looking at Piazza Puccini?

jb12

Bluebus told me to take trolley and travel some stops to get to bus station at Firenze, Largo Alinari,9 (agenzia CAP)

jb12

Here's email I got a month ago
we cannot yet inform you about scheduled service from Firenze to Montecatini on next august 2017, we can give you the information just from next June, please contact us again at that time.
Ticket price Firenze-Montecatini T. is € 4,50. The bus leaves from Via Gabbuggiani, near Stazione Leopolda-Porta al Prato, from Firenze SMN by tramway - stop Porta al Prato-Leopolda.
If you arrive in Florence SMN, it is possibile also, from that railway station, take the train to Montecatini T.- (line Firenze-Lucca-Viareggio).
Best regards,

BLUBUS S.c.ar.l.
Ufficio Relazioni con il Pubblico
NumeroClienti 848.800.730

Perche

There's nothing wrong, you can do this. This is also a common question when people fly to Milan and want to go to Lake Como. They make plane and hotel reservations months in advance, but cannot find train service. There is train service. It's a local train. Frecciarossa, the high speed trains, posts their schedule well in advance. Local trains do not post them until 2-4 weeks before. That's why the email you said you received about a month ago said they could only tell you about June. They said to check back later for August, and what they were really just saying is that the August schedule just wasn't out yet. In Italy you can't check for routing or sshedules for local trains until a few weeks before.

Looking at Trenitalia, you have two options, but you haven't said where you are going. There is more than one Montecatini stop. For one, you take the train from Santa Maria Novella, the main train station in Florence, get off at Pistoia and take the bus right across the street that is scheduled to leave to Montecatini Centrale about 5 minutes after the train arrives. It costs about 5.5 euros. The other option, departing from the same train station in Florence, you take a high speed train to Pisa, then another train to Montecatini Terme. It will cost about 12-15 euros.

I may have the stops reversed, I don't really remember. I know nothing about Blubus. I hate buses and only take them when I have to, and that's almost exclusively when I'm way down South, or in Sicily. Even then, I generally rent a car because of how much I hate Italian buses. But you can definitely get there with a coordinated train and bus ride, or just by train, depending on where in Montecatini you are going.

You had a very understandable misunderstanding. When they told you in June that they didn't know about August, to check back later, they may not have explained it, but that's really what you needed to do. Sometimes, local train schedules don't even come out until a week before. It's unfortunate, but that confuses a lot of travelers.

Log onto Trenitalia now, and check your options for this month. Somewhere on the upper right side, you can click for an English option. Even now, the September schedule hasn't even been published yet, but the one for August is published.

Perche

For example, just logging onto Trenitalia and picking a random date next week, there are very cheap train fares to Montecatini Terme with only one stop that get you there in an hour (where I suspect you want to go), and also to Montecatini Centrale with two stops that includes a bus and takes a little over an hour to an hour and a half. Local (regional) trains you just have to wait until about a week or two out to check.

jb12

I will probably go to Montecatini Terme via train to Pistoia and bus bus to Terme. You made up my mind on taking Blubus on the way back to Florence. It looks like I'm going to spend half of my day just travelling from Florence. Just learn a valuable lesson about making plans way in advance. Thank you

KLouis

Just a little general info to add to that provided by Perche. Actually, train schedules throughout Europe are published twice a year, at the end of summer and the end of winter (I forget the exact dates). This is also valid for Italy, thus if you can get hold of a printed schedule like the ones hanging in stations, expect no big changes for a ~six month long period. Still, now that Italy has reached the internet era, "someone" at FS updates all local schedules continuously to take care of track repairs and other similar disruptions and this is the schedule that you can access through the Trenitalia site. It is amazing that they let you book a Freccia service several weeks in advance but not a local train: perhaps they consider this a better idea for reasons that only the FS understands.

At any rate, if instead of the Trenitalia site you use the one of the Swiss federal Trains (www.sbb.ch) for planning your Italian vacation, you can certainly find the trains you need well ahead of time! You can choose from 9 Firenze stations and two for Montecatini.