Train Reservations

You wont need reservations at that time of year. Go to the station and buy your tickets as soon as you get into the FIRST town in Italy. Dont wait for the day of travel.

Not sure why Carl is saying,"don't wait till day of travel." You certainly can. IF we know for sure our departure day and time, we often will buy the next ticket when we arrive. It is more of a convenience than a necessity. But if uncertain about departure, we just buy a ticket that day on the next train out of town. For the most part we are forced to travel in June and July and have never found a full train. (Above comments do not apply to overnight sleepers -- those should be reserved in advance because they can fill up)

Liz, there is a thread working under Transportation on the Venice to CT journey. It's called "Train from Venice to Cinque Terre" and dated 8/7. Lots of stuff there. Your other journeys are on very popular runs. Literally, dozens of trains a day. You don't need reservations for any of these runs. However, it is recommended that you purchase when you arrive so that you can try for the limited AMICA fares which give you a 20% discount. Sometimes, they are available. You can see all of the train schedules on www.trentialia.com. Hint: don't put in a date over 60 days and use what you see as a reference. Schedule may not be accuate beyond 60 days. Yes you can get these tickets on the day of travel. You'll see the Italians walking up to the self-service kiosks, buy their tickets and walk to the train.

Larry is on target, as usual. The trains will be wide open in October. We usually use the slower trains with open sitting in second class because we are never in a hurry.

We traveled by train from Rome to Assisi to Florence and then back to Rome. We did not have a reservation and we bought our tickets on the day of travel. BUT before leaving I struggled with this, too. Since I like to have as many details pinned down before departure, I wanted train reservations and tickets. But I could not make the reservations, for technical reasons, online. So what I did to ease my anxiety was print out the schedules from www.trenitalia.com for each destination on the specifc date of travel with a couple of departure time options. I brought those with me and when I arrived at the train station, I handed the print out to the ticket agent, pointed to the train I wanted and asked for "due biglietti." Both of us were relieved that the communication barrier was broken. I had worried unnecessarily.

Also, and this is really important, Italy is so fabulous and once you arrive, you may not want to be stuck with reservation for a train because you may wish to stay longer or leave earlier if you are enjoying (or not enjoying - impossible!) a particular city.

Have no worries about this. Italy has mastered train travel (USA could learn alot!!) and you can be certain of getting tickets on the day of travel.

Also, the automated ticket machines in train stations are very easy to use. They have instructions in English (and other languages for that matter), take debit and credit cards, and enable you to skip the line at the ticket window. Just be sure to validate your ticket by getting the date and time stamped before you board.

I suggest following Linda's advice about printing out the train schedules for the days/times you think you might want to travel. Go to the "details" portion of the reservation information. This is particularly helpful when you're taking a journey where your stop is not the train's ultimate destination. Why? On the board at the station, the ultimate destination is listed, so you want to be certain you hop on the right train. The way that I deviate from what Linda has suggested, though, is I use the automated ticket machines rather than the station personnel if I have that option (sometimes I don't) even though I speak Italian well.

If you buy your tickets from the automated machine, does it vaidate it there or is there a separate place you have to go to get it validated?

No. You validate prior to boarding. Yellow boxes near the head of the track. Look around and watch locals doing it. If the ticket is for a specific day, train, time, seat, etc. then you don't need to because it can only be used one time. But I do it anyway. Good habit to develop.