Train from Vienna to Florence

My tip is to fly. 10+ hours on a train with multiple changes is not for me. The flight is like an hour.

Well there is the convenience of the NightJet. The romance of the rails as you are being slowly rocked to sleep in your own private compartment with private water closet and shower; for only 325 euro (cheaper than a nice hotel in Vienna). In a mere 12 hours you will find yourself in Florence. Of course, it’s a night train so you wont see any of the landscape.

And there is a train departing at 06:24 with only one change. The change is about 30 minutes, which I appreciate. Being a day train you can enjoy the view and the clickity-clackety romance of the rails for 10:25 hours for 85 euro.

Austrian Air makes the trip non-stop in 90 minutes but not every day of the week. The flight departs at 1pm so thats either good cause you can sleep or bad because you lose much of the day. The cost is about 200 euro. Austrian Air is just barely above a discount air carrier these days so not many frills either (no private shower or private water closet, no view, no romance of the rails). If you add about 3 hours to the flight time for extra taxi time to the airport and pre-flight time then the flight, door to door, will be about 6 hours faster than the train.

All comes down to what you enjoy.

I would do the night train. Save a few hundred Euro on a room in Vienna and wake up in Florence and not loosing any time in Florence. Departs at a decent hour, arrives a bit early but hotels will hold luggage. I say this not being a great fan of night trains (just took two in the last few weeks) but this one is pretty nice and seems to work for what you want to do.