CT to Venice

It depends on when you are going. For regional trains like a couple along the Cinque Terre, they may not be available for a little while yet. I know you can get tickets from Monterosso to Venice for early June now. Tickets right now are about $58 and take about 5.5 hours. Check on www.raileurope.com for availability.

Kim,

Which part of June will you be travelling? I checked 14 June for Vernazza to Venice trains and the Trenitalia website shows seats for sale that day, but no further into June. That may be due to the fact that new schedules will be uploaded on 15 June?

If you can get Economy or Super Economy tickets for the premium trains that you'll be using, you can certainly pre-purchase tickets and save some money, but note that those will lock you into travelling on a specific train, date and departure time. There are no price breaks for Regionale tickets so you could even buy those at the station on the day of travel (DON'T forget to validate!). Although it costs a bit more, I normally just buy tickets at the local station a day or two before I'll be travelling.

Try bahn.de for schedules and trenitalia.com to purchase tickets. Fast trains (Freccie or Intercity) are posted, regionale tickets can only be purchased up to seven days in advance but, as noted, no discounts on regionale tickets.

Use a close in date (this wee, next week) to peruse optional itineraries on Trenitalia.com. Make note of a schedule you like. Let's say it is through Firenze and the train to Venezia S.L. leaves Firenze at 12:30. You can book your Fir-Ven SL segment now for anytime in June and get the discount. Then buy your regionale tickets at the time of travel, ensuring you arrive in Firenze in time to hook up with the Freccia.

Kim, in general, there are 3 routes from the CT to Venice. 1) CT/Genoa/Milan/Venice, 2) CT/La Spezia/Parma/Bologna/Venice and, 3) CT/La Spezia/Pisa/Florence/Venice. Here's a snapshot of what these runs look like on the current schedule. http://gyazo.com/55cb0d6f0d5eaa8c215f61ce4e4a6ee3 Trip takes at least 6.0hrs no matter which run you choose. I suspect the reason you can't see your travel date is that you are looking out beyond June 14. Trenitalia refreshes their schedules twice yearly. They are never on time for travelers to look ahead 90-120 days when the refresh date is in within that window. You can use the current schedule as a really good guideline as not much will change. Just keep looking and they will eventually show up.

Thank you all for your very helpful and reassuring feedback. I'm not thrilled about a 6 hour train ride but in the same regard it will force us to sit back, relax and enjoy doing nothing (okay maybe I'll be on wi-fi some of the time uploading photos that will make my friends envious).

Kim,

You won't necessarily have Wi-Fi available during your six hour rail trip. There will definitely NOT be any Wi-Fi on the Regionale trains.