Buying Train Tickets in Advance (while there)

You can do Rome Directly to the main Pompeii train Station. Turn left out of the station and its a nice flat 1.8 or so Kilometer walk to the Pompeii site entrance.

Peggy,

If you buy all of your tickets as soon as you arrive in Venice, you might be able to get discount fares for some of your rides, particularly the ones toward the end of your trip.

Ahhhhhh, indeed!

Check our www.roninrome.com He has several newletters regarding buying train tickets and using trains.

Peggy we just did a similar trip in July, excluding Rome this time, with a little different order. We also started in Venice. I had printed out the train schedules with times, etc. and in Venice went to Oltrex travel agency, located one bridge past the Bridge of Sighs, (in R.S. 2009 Venice bk., pg. 26) and purchased all the tickets for all of our longer journies. This was so easy to do and they charged only 3 Euros per journey for our entire group of 5, not 3 Euros per person. It was well worth the .60 euro per person to do this. It helped having the print out of the schedule to just hand the girl. Buon Viaggio!

Go out of your way in Venice! It is worth it just to have an excuse to ride the vaporetto up and down the Grand Canal - go after dinner and enjoy seeing all the buildings illuminated. Even better, listen to Rick's audio guide.

In general we always find it easy to buy our tickets from a travel agent when we are buying tickets for longer trips. They usually do not charge for this service and it is much more relaxing to get your tickets this way.

Hi Peggy,

We did a similar route, bought all of our tickets in Venice (our first stop), and didn't have any trouble getting the trains and times we wanted. To me it wasn't worth taking the chance that any would sell out, and as Tim said, you can sometimes get discount fares (called "amica" fares) if those haven't sold out yet. The cost savings was motivational for us. :-)

But at this time of year, you probably don't HAVE to buy them in advance. There are frequent trains between all those cities, so you wouldn't be stranded anywhere for long if you couldn't get on your preferred departure.

Enjoy Italy!!! It'll all be worth it when you get there!

Thank you for all of your responses! I hadn't considered the fact that I could possibly get discount fares so this is awesome news for our poor wallets haha.

If you don't mind being locked in to a rigid timetable, try to purchase these tickets a couple of days in advance: you're at the tail end of the summer season, and there will be LOTS of people using the trains to return home.

On the other hand, train service is frequent on all of these itineraries, and particularly between Venice and Milan, Milan and Genoa, Florence and Rome, and Rome and Naples.

The closest rail station to the Pompei Ruins is the Villa dei Misteri Station. Get off at Napoli Centrale, then take the Circumvesuviana light rail to Pompei (40 mins.) Buy a UNICO CAMPANIA U3 ticket for 2.40 Euros. It's then 250 yards to the Pompei Ruins ticket booth. Note that the Circumvesuviana rail is NOT NOT part of the Trenitalia system. At Napoli Centrale, you must take the escalators down to the underground level to take the Circumvesuviana rail.

The Trenitalia Pompei Station is about 2 kilometers from the entrance, a little too far to walk for many.

www.vesuviana.it

Peggy,

There are frequent trains each day on the routes you mentioned, so you shouldn't have any trouble getting tickets.

There are two ways to approach this:

1.) You could buy ALL your tickets the day after you arrive in Venice. The Oltrex (or other) T.A. is great as that saves a trip back to Venezia S.L. As Tim suggested, you might be able to get some discounts. The only "disadvantage" of this method is that you'll be "locked into" travelling at specific times (since some of the trains you'll be using may have compulsory reservations).

2.) You could buy your tickets for each outgoing journey when you arrive in each town (since you'll be at the station anyway). However, since the outgoing trips will only be a few days from arrival day, discounts might not be available. This approach may be a bit more flexible as you won't be "locked into" particular times and you could tailor your departure times more for the circumstances at the time (ie: if you decide to leave a bit later from one place).

Happy travels!