My wife and I are intrigued by the idea of touring by train, but we have several questions.
If we make stops along the way, for say lunch, what can we do with our luggage? Do the train stations have luggage lockers?
More later!

Very good questions Texas. I'll be doing this samething in June.
Personally I really enjoy traveling in Italy by train and I highly
recommend it to you. There are some advantages to traveling by train
that you don't have by car and of course visa versa.

One very good suggestion is to travel as light as possible. Never ever take more
luggage than you yourself can carry. It's only logical. There are places where you can check your suitcases in though.
In 2007 I took one carry on and a small suitcase even though I stayed in Italy for over a month. There are laundrymats
everywhere in Italy and you get a chance to meet people there.

That being said it's nice to pick a city as your base of operations and then take day trips out from there so you don't
have to worry about your luggage. For example Perugia was my base of operations. Perugia is right in the middle of Italy
so it was easy to take the train either north or south and come back the same day. Took some actually pretty long trips
this way coming back on the same day. Oh, get a place within walking distance from the train station. Buses don't run
all hours. Once I went all the way to Piacenza from Perugia in one day. We had to take the taxi down to the train
station because the buses weren't running that early in the morning.

Also get a nice little easy to carry and easy to take out map of Italy. Street Wise Italy is a great little map.
www.streetwisemaps.com

I love exploring by train , but as posted you need to travel light , also I fly into Venice and make that my base , I keep my hotel there even if I do not return that night so I can store my bulk of luggage , not gone for more than one night ....be carful with your luggage on the train !other than that I love it.....http://www.raileurope.com/train-faq/...lia/index.html

This link might be useful

(It's the one of the Italian train company for "human transport")
http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...0080a3e90aRCRD

You can find time tables, informations, etc..

You should look into buying a Eur Rail Pass, you can only get it in the states so get it before you go on your trip. It can /will save you some money.
Make sure you watch your back (and front)on the trains and train stations, they are ripe with pickpockets. Make copies of your passport and keep it separate from your passport. Good luck and have fun!

We've travelled by train on only one occasion - from Arezzo to Firenze (Florence) - and it was very enjoyable. Perhaps so more for me (the designated driver) than everyone else. The trains are comfortable. There may be some challenges depending on your language skills. The easiest ticketing for spontaneous train travel is to use the automated ticketing machines - they usually offer a choice of language once you get started. The ticketing booths staffed by real humans will be more of a challenge, especially in smaller towns.

The situation where language might be the most significant issue is in a station when the arrival and departure annoucements are being made. The information imparted will include the binario (track) your train will be leaving from - somewhat important to know if you hope to catch the train. When there have been delays the announcement board will not be updated until the last moment. This can cause some stress while you try to figure out where you should go.

Summertime is also the time when track repairs are made - which can significantly slow your travel to a city (or cause you to transfer to a bus).

Hope this is of assistance.

Steve, all big stations, and a good amount of the smaller ones, have announcements both in Italian and English. To find the track, one can also check the leaving train chart.

__________________