I'm sorry but you forgot the other side of the coin there. I am Italian (living abroad now though) and until last year I had been traveling a lot across Italy.

I'm sorry but you forgot the other side of the coin there. I am Italian (living abroad now though) and until last year I had been traveling a lot across Italy. Trains are a joke in Italy, every Italian person would be able to tell you that. While we mostly use trains to move around from town to town, the train service itself is abysmal. Dirty trains, missed connections, delays because of problems in the infrastructures/scheduling. I used to take regional trains to go visit my (now ex) girlfriend living in the neighboring city from mine (which is Bologna, a pretty big train exchange/junction between the north and center of Italy). Every single day my train would wait literally 100 meters away from the station, stuck there for an hour or so (outside of its timetable) because somebody messed up the platform and there was another train incoming. Yes, we have a lot of ticketing machines where you can just go there and buy a ticket in 10 minutes, but actually getting to your destination is a whole different deal in Italy. Also, thanks to the new high speed trains (especially connecting Milan and Rome), the fares for normal regional trains have skyrocketed as well (they want to push people on the HS ones). I clearly remember doing Bologna -> Florence for 7 euros 5-6 years ago, last year I checked again and it had skyrocketed to 20-25 euros. That's a massive increase for just a ~1 hour ride. EDIT: Forgot to add that this is all in the North where the infrastructure is more mature and stable. The south is way worse, don't get me started.