bus/train tickets: biglietteria, info and pronunciation
* ALWAYS have your ticket, and always validate your ticket immediately! Italy has steep fines and will fine tourists as quickly as locals for not having either a ticket or a validated ticket on any city bus. The tickets are very inexpensive; whereas any fine is extremely expensive. There are no excuses, certainly not even that you are an uneducated tourist. It is cheaper to buy a bus ticket than pay a fine. As soon as you get on the bus, validate your ticket--as holding an unvalidated ticket on a bus is using the bus without paying. You pay for the ticket, then validate it to show you have paid. The ticket can be used til you validate it, hence having to validate it immediately upon getting on the bus. * Most single use tickets even can be used up to 90 minutes, in either direction.
* Be careful validating your ticket! In Italy it IS acceptable to use a multi-use ticket for more than one person, and each time the machine sees it, it counts it as a person. In Bergen, this is not allowed! One ticket, one person. If you try to swipe it more than once, or too frequently, the machine will go red; both as it is not allowed, and if it is a multi-pass, so you don´t accidentally use the ticket times up* In Italy, if you have a family, you can all use one ticket, then when validating, the ticket is shown under or towards the machine, depending upon the type of machine it is, and it counts, it is counted each time! If you do this unintentionally, you use up your ticket and do not get it refunded as it is your mistake!*
On buses you can buy a ticket on board, and at places which sell tickets, I believe you still have to have cash. I have not seen where they accept credit cards or bank cards, as on many buses here in Bergen do now, after years of having to pay cash or even exact coins for a ticket. Or worse, having to have a ticket beforehand, when tickets were only sold in the city not out on the islands:(. Maybe you can buy tickets now in Florence too on any bus--I´ll update if I find out otherwise.
HOW & Where to buy bus tickets. You want a city bus ticket, not a long distance bus ticket.
1) Buy a ticket at a " la biglietteria", a ticket office, ticket window, ticket vendor:
- any place, including bars, news stands, displaying the ATAF symbol
-at any Tabacchi store, which will have outdoor sign, say above the door, with a large T on a dark background such as dark blue or black
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In Italian
-" la biglietto", pronounced "bigl-i-et-er-EE-a"
- a bus ticket is: "un biglietto" , pronounced "oon bigl-i-et-er-EE-a"
-bus tickets is: " biglietti", pronounced "bigl-i-et-er-EE-i"
Video distributore biglietti to practice pronunciation of Italian, and what happens when you don´t buy a ticket,). This is same for any ticket, be it train or bus.
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Video how to use a biglietto Veloce /ticket machine for train tickets link.
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Video Florence bus, using ATAF website for timetables, prices, route numbers link.
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