Getting There
See the maps page for various maps of the exact location.
By plane
There are three airports within an hour or so of the house: Pisa,
Genova (Genoa)
and Parma.
All of them are served by low cost airlines. Pisa is the largest and quickest
to get to and there are many flights each day from the UK operated by
Ryanair, Easyjet,
British Airways, Jet2.com
and several other airlines. There are also regular flights from Pisa to
Sardinia, Sicily and Malta as well as several other European cities.
Genova and Parma are much smaller airports but still have one flight a
day to the UK on most days (although not every day).
Ryanair usually works out the cheapest option and flies from London Stansted as well as several other locations in the UK including Glasgow, Doncaster, Liverpool, East Midlands and Bournemouth. Be aware that they do charge extra for hold luggage and it is cheapest to book this at the time of booking as well. Easyjet also fly from both Gatwick and Luton to Pisa now. If you are flying from Stansted, you can get cheaper tickets for Stansted Express via Ryanair's website.
If you like a little more comfort than Ryanair offer, several other airlines including BA usually have some fairly good offers available. See our links page for more details
The easiest way to get to the house from the airport is to hire a car. It is also possible to travel by train. See below for more details. It is possible to take a taxi directly to the house but this is likely to cost €150 or more!
By train
The closest train station to the house is in Villafranca (approx 5km away) and the station is officially called "Villafranca-Bagnone". This is on the main line between La Spezia and Parma. Although we would recommend hiring a car for ease and to get the most out of your visit, it is easy enough to get to/from all the airports by train (as long as your flight doesn't arrive in Italy too late at night). You can get a bus or a taxi to the train station from the airport in Genova and Parma, which is normally about a 10 minute journey. There is a train station actually at Pisa airport which connects with the central station in Pisa. Travelling by train to the house does generally take considerably longer than driving. And since the nearest station is approximately 5km from the house the easiest thing is to order a taxi to collect you - see Taxis under local information.
It is also possible to get to Villafranca-Bagnone by train from all the other big cities in Italy, including Milan, Turin, Florence, Lucca, Rome, Venice and further afield. It's even possible to travel via Eurostar from London (although not as cheap as flying).
For more details of train times see www.ferroviedellostato.it or the typically efficient German train timetable website www.db.de which also covers Italian train times.
Driving
There are several car hire companies in each of the airports. For more details see Car Hire under the links section. It is worth shopping around but we would recommend Holiday Autos or Hertz via the Ryanair website. These tend to be cheapest. If you want peace of mind it is worth taking out the extra insurance to remove the excess you pay for any damage. If you go for that option Holiday Autos normally work out best as they offer full damage excess waiver for just £2.50 per day, whereas other companies can charge upwards of €18 per day.
Directions from: Genova
(Genoa) airport | Pisa
airport | Parma
airport | Florence
| La Spezia