I will be going on the 10 day Venice, Florence, Rome tour in April. I live in washington dc. Flying in to Venice and out of Rome is 200 to 300 dollars more than in and out of Rome. I was thinking of flying into Rome, spending the night there, and going on to Venice by train the next day or two. Is there a fast reasonably price train ? Is there a must see sight along the way ?
Walter G
Walter, but you see its a false comparison if you're not including the extra cost in time and money to travel from Rome to Venice first. I'd consider it worth 200-300 USD to avoid backtracking.
Nevertheless, its a good idea to get there at least one night before your tour starts so you're not drop-dead exhausted for the beginning meeting & dinner. We flew into Milan (much closer to Venice and a direct flight from US) and stayed a couple of nights on Lake Como, and one night in Milan before catching the train to Venice for the start of the tour.
It is not really "extra time and money" if you want to spend more time in Rome than the tour allows.
Train between Rome and Venice takes roughly 4 hours and tickets bought 2 months or so in advance should be around 43€ on Trenitalia or €36 on Italo.
In this case I would go with the plane ticket $200 - $300 cheaper.
Base rate on Trenitalia is $92, other rates for April aren’t posted, so worst case scenario you save about $100 flying round trip to/fro Rome. You can look at the tour itinerary for Venice and Rome to decide which city you want to spend more time in. If it was me, I’d fly into Venice several days ahead of the tour and fly out of a Rome several days afterwards. There’s so much to see and experience.
hey hey walter
first if i were you, i'd look at the price of trains and cost of hotel if you fly roundtrip rome. train would be about $90, depending on what seat and buying ticket early, plus cost for hotel room per night (close to $200). usually the train is direct and about 3h30m to 4h00m. book your train with trenitalia.com or italo.com not raileurope.
for me i would fly into venice couple days early, lots to see, roam around, and enjoy, recover from jetlag.
stay couple days in rome after tour. it's your vacation, look at arrival times and if early checkin or luggage hold, you don't want to be pulling luggage around cobblestones or uneven pavement plus waiting, cancellation policies. April can be a busy month with spring breaks and easter.
helps to do research and comparisions of everything involved. you can always come back after you have decided and ask more questions. you will have a great time.
aloha
There is no need to pay the base rate for train tickets. The fares I posted are the actual Smart and SuperEconomy fares for tickets bought now for January, two months ahead. They should be able to get those fares by booking in January for April.
I don't see any direct flights from Washington to Venice in May, so it will be a couple extra hours to get to Venice changing planes somewhere in Europe. You can get a nonstop to Rome, then train to Venice immediately with a full fare ticket for 106 EUR in 4 1/2 hours. There are even a couple of direct trains every day from Rome Fiumicino airport to Venice if the timing works. Otherwise, take the Leonardo Express to Termini and then the next train to Venice. Italo trains are just as fast and nice for a few EUR less.
HI walter. It's dumb for me to give advice about another city than my own. But are you sure you are doing a sufficiently sophisticated search? Are you using a wide ranging site like Kayak or Google Flights? Are you using your favorite "real" airline site? Are you using a "bargain" airline site?
It makes a big difference. If the $200 is a big factor for you, I suggest you look into flying from Philadelphia or Newark, as well as from DC. You might even save money by flying to the hub of an airline you don't usually use, like DC-Chicago-Venice. From NYC, it seems to me like the there are more Venice flights every year. Yes, some of them may be summer-only.
My wife and I have often saved money by buying a Lufthansa flight through ANY of their hubs in Germany, and then their local flight to our real destination. Since you can't get your hotel room at 7AM, we don't mind arriving at noon!
Just another idea for you, I hope.
We flew into Milan (much closer to Venice
Walter, I'd definitely explore flying into Milan (Malpensa) and taking the train from there. Fly out of Rome. We see a lot of posters either flying into or out of Malpensa as it can be less expensive than some other airports. Arriving in Italy the day before the tour is a must-do in case of a flight delay/cancellation (those can and do happen) and you'll need to figure the cost of accommodation, trains and meals for the extra day Still, regardless of entry point, we'd recommend flying in a day early to get over jet lag before having to hitting the ground running.
Have you tried Google flight Matrix? It's good for research but you need to book with the individual airlines. It lists all available flights. I've chosen random flights in April.
Into Venice. Out of Rome.
https://matrix.itasoftware.com/#view-flights:research=IADVCE-FCOIAD
R/T Rome.
https://matrix.itasoftware.com/#view-flights:research=IADFCO-FCOIAD
Since I rarely find open jaw tickets to be more expensive, I did a quick check and found the fares to be nearly identical fares between into Venice and RT to Rome. Lots of tickets in the range of 7-$900 dollars so I am not sure what you are doing to find a 2 to $300 difference. Now I was using Wed to Wed, mid April -- 14 days apart.
If sticking to RT to Rome, take the train immediately to Venice. For the most part your arrival day is shot anyway so you might as well spend it getting to Venice. Very little is gained by spending a night in Rome and then traveling to Venice.
There are at least one hour and sometimes 2 or 3 trains per hour to Venice. Base fare is roughly 90E with discount fares closer to 50E. Since discount fares are no change, no refund, it is best to wait till your arrival to buy the tickets. It will be the base fare -- 90 + or - E.
Thanks for all the replies. I stopped using skyscanner and started using Google flights. It seems to be better and much easier to use.
