Day Trip from Rome to Venice?

No, it's not practical as a day trip from Rome. Even a day trip to Florence would be an excessively long day with little chance to really experience Florence.

If you have 2 days prior to the start of your 7-day Rome tour, you could fly into Venice from the USA and spend your first two nights there. On the morning of your second day you'd need to catch a train for Rome, but your first day would allow enough time to see a bit of Venice and take a gondola ride.

Well, theoretically, but have her look at a map. Its over 300 miles from Rome to Venice. Whether flying or going by rail, thats most of a day getting there and back. Just go there and stay on the 2 days after. Book your flight as an open jaw and leave for home from Venice.

Thank you.

It is close to 4 hours one way with the high-speed Freccia train. If you plan to add Venice, buy the tickets as soon as possible. Bought immediately before departure, a ticket comes close to EUR 90. Bought well in advance, the same ticket can be as cheap as EUR 25. Use the Trenitalia website to buy them (have Roma Termini and Venezia S Lucia as departure and/or arrival stations). Payment by credit card and an e-mailed pdf ticket for printing at home.

It’s not practical but it is possible. As others have stated, you will spend a large part of your day on the train but it could give you 4 to 5 hours in Venice which will allow for a gondola ride and a quick glimpse of this amazing city. A few years ago, we did a day trip from Rome to Venice with a large family group. I have been to Venice several times and try to stay at least 2 or 3 days but on this trip my traveling companions insisted on a day trip only. It actually went better than I thought it would. High speed train from Rome to Florence, train change and then another fast train to Venice. We arrived at lunch, had a great meal, and wandered the city for about 4 hours. After an early supper, we took the train back to Rome, arriving to our hotel pretty late, around 11pm or so. It made for a very exciting but exhausting day. It is better if you can spend a few days in Venice, but my humble opinion is a day trip is better than not seeing it at all if it’s really important to you or your wife. Have a great time!

What you should do is fly into Venice, spend a couple nights, train to Rome, then 7 day tour Rome and home from Rome. That would be more efficient use of your time.

Is this even possible (or practical) for a day trip from Rome?

A Lear jet at your disposal would be a great help.

Assuming you are part of the "99%", the better choice is as Frank describes and spend a couple nights in Venice and do it before or after your tour.

Just book your flights as multi-city/open jaw so you do not have to back track

You are very wise to plan to arrive early for a prepaid tour. Perhaps you might want to change your vacation (I mean, at work) schedule so you have 3 days at the beginning. Then you could spend two nights in Venice, if the tour starts late in the day.

You have chosen not to fill in the "Home" profile information, so I don't even know for sure that you're from the USA. But, anyway, there are a surprising number of direct flights between the US and Venice. And it's not always more expensive to buy a two segment flight (note that you might not have to fly to Venice through Rome. If you live near a United hub, their Lufthansa partner flies to Venice from several cities in Germany, and the Lufthansa planes are nicer than the United ones ... )

It is possible that someone who picks a packaged tour is not comfortable with the idea of getting themselves around Italy on their own. But if you look around this website, including Rick's travel hints (blue menu top left), you will see that it's, maybe, not as hard as you thought. It does take a leap of faith to make a train trip that has a change of trains. But it's much easier than the average two segment air flight at home! And rail discounts (non-changeable, non-refundable) will disappear as September approaches.

Do a little Venice research. I've been there three times, and it's magical. But when you find out how much an actual Gondola ride (as opposed to the public bus-boats, for comparison) costs, you will both wonder if you should make that one of your objectives! (Partly kidding. If you want it, you want it.)

I don't think even a Learjet would be much faster than a Frecciarossa doing Rome to Venice in 3 hours 45 minutes. City center to city center, train is probably the fastest transportation. Still the trip looks too long for a single day.