Florence to Rome transportation

Train is your best option. What site were you using for schedule -- avoid Eurail.

This is the best Europe train schedule website, it should answer your questions: http://bahn.hafas.de/bin/query.exe/en

www.Trenitalia.com si the office site for trains in Italy. They have an English version (top right side of the page).
If you book on line you get 5% discount, or Amica rate 20% discount.

Just to clarify, trenitalia will give you complete schedules, as will the bahn.de website. Unfortunately, American credit cards don't work on the trenitalia website...something to do with fraud protection. However, as Bea suggests, you may be able to get a 20% Amica discount if you head to a train station as soon as you can to purchase tickets for whatever journey you decide upon....if still available, Amica tickets can be purchased up to midnight the day before departure, but they are limited. On the Florence-Rome leg, you'll find the new AV trains the most expensive, but no quicker than the ES or, indeed, some of the IC trains. Personally, I would stick with second class....there's not much difference from first, especially for a relatively short train journey.

Bridgie, we are on the RS Florence tour in November and I was looking for the exact same thing as you. Trouble is, none of the trains leave late enough Friday night to allow you to attend the farewell dinner or early enough Saturday morning to make anything except an afternoon flight. Most flights out of Rome are before 11am.

We ended up booking a rare 1:30pm flight out of Rome connecting in London. Then, the airline changed its schedule so that the London flight departed before the Rome flight landed. I called and had them change the flights to fly out of Florence that morning, connecting through Amsterdam.

I would suggest looking to see if there are any flights out of Florence instead. I believe the latest train leaves Friday night at about 10pm and the earliest train Saturday morning is 6 or 6:30am. Also look at the airport in Pisa--as I recall, trains from Florence run to Pisa at midnight or 2am.

According to the timetables at www.bahn.de, you have these choices:

The last direct train leaves Firenze S.M.N. at 21:52 and arrives at Roma Termini at 23:30.

You can leave Firenze Rifredi at 22:37, change at Bologna Centrale, and arrive at Roma Tiburtina at 04:52.

Or you can leave Firenze Rifredi at 00:43, change at Pisa Centrale, and arrive at Roma Termini at 05:48.

Your first morning train leaves Firenze Campo di Marte at 05:57 and arrives at Roma Termini at 08:24.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I looked into flying out of Pisa and Florence. British Airways doesn't fly out of Florence, and their flights out of Pisa won't get me home until Sunday. It looks like I'll be missing the final dinner with my tour.

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to get to Rome FCO in time for any flight before noon from outside the Rome general area. From Rome itself, we have suggested staying in Rome instead of the more expensive airport area and then having a private car waiting for you at about 4:00am. Then, we have had posters making the attempt from the Amalfi coast. No can do except by private transportation. We even had one poster who wanted to spend his last evening in Venice and then go through the night somewhow to make his early morning Rome FCO flight.

From Florence, you can do it but you will have a very long and sleepless night. As Tim points out, there are trains that will get you to Rome very early in the morning. But even that may not do it for the 6:00am-7:30am flights. The Leonardo express doesn't begin running until 5:50am so that could be out. Again, you could be looking at private transportation.