The story of Italy’s infrastructure is one perhaps better lived than told. Anyone who’s tried to get from Rome to Basilicata by train, travel from Florence to one of Tuscany’s hilltop towns by public transit, or get to Sicily from mainland Italy any way other than airplane likely knows that accessible inter-city and intra-city travel is never a given. 

There’s nothing more disconcerting than searching how to get from one destination to another in Google Maps only to see that your proposed route involves three buses, one metro ride, a treno regionale, and bits of walking thrown in. You may end up where you want to go, but it will almost certainly take the whole day to get there. Here, one must make the dreaded calculation: is it worth it?