Another Train Booking Thread

Check here

Google is your friend; it perhaps would have been faster and easier to search for the answer there, rather than start another thread.

Happy Travels.

The link above connects to www.trainline.eu with a very useful list. I have booked through Trainline for the European continent and Britain (trainline.com) and found it easy to use and with fair prices.
www.seat61.com remains the encyclopedia for train travel. You will see there that the simple answer to your timeframe question is that major intercity trains should be booked as far ahead as is allowed to get the lowest prices.

Whenever I have questions about trains in Europe, I check here:
https://www.seat61.com
Really useful train site, including best time to buy.

Rome to Riomaggiore can be booked on Trenitalia or Trainline.eu up to 120 days in advance.

Most of the options from Riomaggiore to Florence are on regional trains so no advance purchase required nor are there reserved seats. There a few options with a freccia or an Intercity leg that you can book in advance with a discount and reserved seat on that particular segment. Depends on your schedule.

The discount fares are called “economy” and “super economy” at Trenitalia. They should be easy to spot.

Florence to Venice can be booked up to 120 days in advance.

Italo is an option for you only on the Florence to Venice leg AFAIK.

That said, since schedules change (slightly) in early June, you may start looking in February and see few choices. You will have to be patient as the schedules roll out (well explained in the caveat on the Trainline link sent by the previous poster, I like to look at schedules for current days that correspond to my plans, i.e., if I am traveling on a Weds in June, I will look at a Weds in the next few weeks just to see what the schedule is so I know what I am looking for when I go to buy in February.

I understand that the trains to and from Cinque Terre will include regional trains, so I would only need to pre-book the portions that make sense.

Do not think of it as "booking", think of it as buying a ticket from A to B. If you want to get from Rome to Riomaggiore, you buy a ticket from Rome (Roma) to Riomaggiore. This will include all trains needed, whether they are High Speed trains where you get a reserved seat included, or regionalle where you do not. You do not separate out the portions.
If the trip only uses Regionalle then there advantage for advance purchase as there is no discount.

And, to add to what the previous poster said.

• You can only buy tickets 3 months in advance
• The website you want is: http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en (Italian Railways)
• You need to use the actual names of the stations, NOT English translations. For example "Roma Termini", "Firenze S. M. Novella" and "Venezia S. Lucia".

You can look up times now, just pick a date < 90 days in the future with the same day of the week.

Edit: "how far in advance should I (or can I) book these tickets" - as soon as they are on sale. Prices never go down, only up as the nearer the date you get the cheaper tickets sell out, leaving only only the more expensive ones.

Actually, the regional train schedules, at least in the Cinque Terre area, have not been released yet. If you look at a date after Dec 8, you will not see any trains, so look at a date before that to see what the options are. They usually don't change much.

and how do I find the mini-fares that I have read about on other threads?

"Mini fares" are discount advance tickets on EC trains that run to/from Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. Trenitalia uses Economy and SuperEconomy, as well as other low price offers like 2 for 1 Saturdays, 3 for 2 Anytime, Together tickets. Trenitalia will display all the various discounts when you look at the trains on their website. Some you might not be eligible for, like CartaFreccia specials, where you need to have a CartaFreccia. Italo also has its own naming system for discount fares, like Low Cost, and Economy. They will display the best available price on their site as well.

Thank you so much for all the helpful replies! This is a big help!

The seat61.com suggestions were VERY helpful! Made it so much easier to research and understand the Italy train ticketing system.

We are a family of 5 so ItaliaRail.com looks like where I need to do my purchasing. Thanks again to each of you!

We are a family of 5 so ItaliaRail.com looks like where I need to do
my purchasing. Thanks again to each of you!

NOOOOOO! ItaliaRail is a 3rd party reseller and does not show all of the available trains or prices. They may also add on fees or service charges. Either use the Trenitalia site, or if you must use a reseller, use Trainline or loco2.com.

Rome to Riomaggiore can be booked on Trenitalia or Trainline.eu up to 120 days in advance.

Florence to Venice can be booked up to 120 days in advance.

It's 180 days in advance. You can Check it right now on Trenitalia using May 19 as day of travel.

You can only buy tickets 3 months in advance

You can look up times now, just pick a date < 90 days in the future with the same day of the week.

Sorry, Chris but you are wrong even if you're speaking about Regionale trains. You can get tickets and look up the complete timetable up to the next timetable change. If you are speaking about Trenitalia's high speed trains, do what I wrote above: it's 180 days. I think that the FFS is the only railway company still using the old 90 days limit, but I may be wrong.

I don't know if crgraham32 is travelling before or after the summer timetable change, but the schedules up to June 9 of high speed trains have already been published on trenitalia.com/tcom-en

ItaliaRail is a reputable, US company that's been re-selling Trenitalia's tickets for ages. I think they add only a small fee, but that they show all Trenitalia trains on their site. It's not like RailEurope and GoEuro.

Our first train will be June 14.

According to Seat61.com, ItaliaRail charges the exact same price as Trenitalia (with a refundable $3.50 handling charge). Plus it is supposed to be easier and cheaper for tickets for more than 1 person. See direct quote below:

"ItaliaRail are an online agency who link directly to Trenitalia's
ticketing system. I now recommend them over Trenitalia's own site for
domestic Italian train tickets for several reasons.

First, Italiarail books exactly the same trains at exactly the same
prices with exactly the same ticketless or collect-at-station options
as Trenitalia's own site, but in plain English with none of
Trenitalia's quirky and sometimes confusing translations. You can use
familiar English place-names such as Venice or Florence.

Second, Italiarail shows a whole day's trains in the search results
and can book up to 20 people at a time. Trenitalia only shows a
couple of hours-worth of trains at a time and can only book up to 5
people at a time.

Third and most importantly, Italiarail can be cheaper than Trenitalia
for 2 or more people travelling together. They have programmed it to
combine (for example) the last remaining €19.90 ticket with a ticket
at the next price level up, say €29.90. Like many airline & rail
booking systems, Trenitalia.com cannot mix & match price levels within
the same booking, so will offer 2 x €29.90 even if there is one €19.90
fare left. For family groups the cost saving can be significant."

Italiarail charge a €3.50 processing fee, but they will refund this if you email them at [email protected] quoting your booking >reference.

https://www.seat61.com/Italy-trains.htm#Buy_Italian_train_tickets_online

Tnere is a good reason because both trenitalia and italotreno want customers to use italian names: those are the names you'll see on signs, monitors and boards.

schedules up to June 9 of high speed trains have already been published on trenitalia.com/tcom-en

Dario I input the OP's desired journey Roma to Riomaggiore (as well as only Rome to La Spezia) for June 9 and there are no solutions. It is too early. I have never been able to get a ticket more than 120 days out and that has had to include aa freccia segment. I just went through this last spring for tickets in the autumn. I bought September tickets in May.

Why don't you just check by yourself on Trenitalia.com? Rome-Florence freccia tickets up to May 19 are on sale now.

Things change and what happened to you in spring doesn't matter. Especially since Trenitalia obviously started switching to the 180 days system in summer 2018 with the schedule change, not during the spring when nothing happens.

I wrote about high speed trains and it isn't too early: the Rome to La Spezia route is served only by direct Intercity trains, not the high speed ones. Therefore you can't get those tickets 180 days in advance before December 9. On the other hand you can get 180 days in advance the Rome-Florence leg served by high speed trains, the leg that "makes sense" as the OP asked.

If you don't know the difference between long distance and high speed trains you can learrn it on seat61 site.

I just put in my info on Trenitalia and Loco2.com for May 20 Naples to Venice. Both will allow me to buy tickets now. Trenitalia is €10 cheaper than Loco2 which seems contrary to what has been said.

Now I need to go to Seat61 to research the different classes to get the best scenic view for two of us. Any suggestions from your experience? We’re planning on the 9:30 frecciarossa out of Naples.

Now I need to go to Seat61 to research the different classes to get the best scenic view for two of us.

There are only two classes of seats (accomodation), first and second. And some regionale trains only have second. "Base", "Economy", "Super Economy" etc. are all price levels for the same seats. "Base" is full price, everything else is cheaper. These price levels are available for both classes (1st and 2nd).
You see the same things out of the window whether you are in a 1st or 2nd class seat.

Sorry, Dario, I checked the June’s dates the OP wants. Not on sale. If May is, that is extraordinary and new to most of us on the Forum. Good to have someone in Italy to tell us of these changes. I guess Trainline.eu will have to update their info,

I saw this post as I was waiting on the Dec 9th update for my May tickets.....we were able to get 2 of the 3 legs we were looking for, but apparently the long leg doesn’t want to go on sale yet......so weird....it’s a frecciaargento and a frecciarosa.....so no idea....

I know there’s differing opinion on this, but I always buy my train tickets ahead of time on- line and print them from home, EVEN the Regionale tickets. I know that I will be traveling in the morning after breakfast, so there’s no decision I need to make at the train station. I can just arrive at the train station 10 minutes before, look for the info to know where to board & go.

I saw a lot of long lines in train stations to purchase tickets this summer in Italy & overheard some people saying they were missing the train they had wanted to ride. Also, I don’t need to remember to validate my pre-purchased tickets in the machine to avoid the large fine.

If I decide to sleep in later, the Regionale ticket is valid for the next train.

Oh, and if you need the actual train station names, just put in your hotel addresses in rome2rio.com, and the result for train travel shows the Italian name of the station on their map - especially helpful in cities with more than one train station.