Any suggestions on southern towns/cities that have good transportation

Hello Ilene

Welcome on board 

So that you may easily get some feedbacks, a new thread has been created from your post on the Italy forum.

all the very best
Bhavna

Hi Ilene,
Really wish you good luck with your project.

I can't give you a lot of info about southern part of Italy: as you probably already know culture, services, even food varies from region to region here. I'm sure someone from southern regions will help you soon, tho.

Anyways, if I were you I would consider Bologna and its surroundings as your first place instead of Parma.
Bologna is not even close to the beauty of Parma, but it's not that far from it and it's the central hub for most of the trains traveling north to south and backward. If you plan to travel a lot, Bologna would give you much more options and fewer hassles.

Where have you already been, in Italy?
EDIT: nevermind I've just seen you have a blog, I'm gonna check it out. If you have any question about northern east Italy, just ask.

Alberto

We spent a two months in southern Italy this year and stayed in Naples, Bari and Lecce. We loved Lecce but recommend getting a car. From there you can visit all the beach towns on several coasts. I was terrified to drive there but it wasn't nearly as scary as I had imagined. Have a wonderful time!!

Yes, you can't really live here without a car; Public Transports are rarely on time, and in towns usually pretty scarce.
A word of advice though: if you plan to drive in cities, triple check ZTL boundaries online.
I don't know how to translate them in English, but these are special zones in the city where cars are not allowed to drive unless having special passes (like for resident or workers).
Fines for violators are high, and I wouldn't rely on GPS software to avoid them.

hi !

if you have not a car and you don't plan to purchase it you have to choose a city with a historic downtown, appreciated by tourists. In this way:
1) if the place is touristically important, then there is a sufficiently developed public system of transportation;
2) the ancient downtown can be happily lived without having a car.

The only con is that historic downtowns and touristic places are more expensive.

Beware that in some cities there are beautiful downtowns with disreputable inhabitants. Better always to choose wealthy neighbourhoods.  For instance, The "Quartieri Spagnoli" of Napoli are wonderful. They deserve to be visited, but you don't want to live there.

I had a wish similar to your one. I'm italian and I was living in a remote village near the austrian border. I decided to live in a beautiful  SAFE town without cars and good public services and an international airport. Hence 4 years ago I moved in Venice. I'm very happy of this choice. The con is that it is a very expensive place.
Besides Venice, which other towns or villages could meet my requirements ?

This is my list (all italy, north and south):

- Firenze;
- Roma;
- Assisi;
- Small touristic places in north and south italy. However in some of them a car could be important. (For instance, every village of the Garda lake; Santa margherita ligure, Bordighera, San Remo and Ospedaletti in Liguria, the Costiera amalfitana, Matera, Ostuni, Capri).

Hope someone else can give you more info about south italian towns which are really safe and with good public transportation.

so long

Hi there,

Congratulations on your citizenship!  There are many beautiful (and safe) places in the south.  It depends on *how* south you want to go, what atmosphere you're looking for, what size of town/city, etc.  In general, the farther south you go, the more sparse the public transit becomes.  I highly recommend a car to get around easier as many towns are not well connected (if at all) by buses or trains.  The rail service in our region of Basilicata is minimal and laughable, for example.

That said.  A few ideas.  Vietri sul Mare is a lovely town on the sea that is very close to Salerno for rail and ferry connections, there are buses and a nice old town.  Ostuni or Martina Franca are nice choices in Puglia (but again, a car would make them better).  Sorrento might be a nice choice, a pretty town with quite a bit going on and local life even in winter, with bus, rail and ferries.