Earlier I posted looking for suggestions for a one night stay in between Florence and Venice next month. We have decided it's too much trouble to change hotels for one night, so if we spend an extra night in either Florence or Venice what are the easiest/ nicest/ day trips by train from either location? It will probably be on a Sunday or Monday. Thanks and Happy New Year!
From Venice:
Padova (Padua in English)
Vicenza
Verona
Ferrara
From Florence:
Most places in Tuscany (Siena, Lucca, Pisa, Arezzo, Cortona, Pistoia, San Gimignano, Chianti Hills, and hundreds more)
Bologna
Cinque Terre
Are ask these easily accessible by train on a Sunday and major attractions open on a Monday? Which do you prefer?
On my first trip, I left Venice early to Padua, stored luggage at the station, spent the day and got to Florence in the evening. You could do that with Verona, though the train rides will be a little longer. I liked Verona better than Padua.
Siena is a good day trip by bus. I wouldn't take a day trip from Venice, takes too long to get to/from the train station.
I found day trips from Venice perfectly convenient by train. Padua and Verona as mentioned above are easy day trips and nice towns. One that is sort of a short day trip not by train is the island of Burano near Venice. It's 45 min to an hour each way by vaporetto boat out there - an island with color houses and a fun, low stress place to explore.
Consult the train planner of the Italian railways for the connections. (Use the Italian originals for place names: Venezia and Firenze for Venice and Florence.) You'll see frequent Regionale trains which are cheap and don't come with reservations or advance buying of tickets. For Siena you best take a bus, which leaves frequently from the bus station across the road from the main railway station in Florence (S.M. Novella).
Okay, let's narrow this down. Either we stay in Florence or we stay in Venice. We would like a place we can go to by train which is a 20 or 30 minutes journey EACH WAY. We don't want to spend an hour or so getting there and another getting back, killing 2 hours in a day, especially if Sunday timetables are slower. Should we calculate that anything from Venice is really from the Mestre, not St. Lucia, or that's a change? I am sure many of you know this region well. Can you guys narrow down some ideas? Especially since some things are closed on Sundays and Mondays? Really, we're looking to get on a train at Florence or Venice, spend 6 or 8 hours in the place, and then come back that night. What do you think? Thanks again.
Use the Trenitalia website to look up train travel and connection times - I don't remember how long it takes to get from say Venice S. L. to Verona - I'd just look it up.
Venice to Padua is 26 minutes on the half hourly Regionale Veloce.
Venice to Vicenza is 45 minutes on the hourly Regionale Veloce.
But unless you are staying by the train station, you have to add local transit time. If staying in San Marco, you have 20 to 40 minutes on a vaporetto, or 15 to 20 minutes walk.
not much is closed on a Sunday. The trains run at the same speed on Sundays.
You're going to get much the same answers. Florence is better for a day trip because if you are in a central location you are probably a 5-15 minute walk from the train station. In Venice it will take you longer to get to the station. I can't think of anywhere that's going to be a 20-minute train ride. You can go from Florence to Bologna in 35 minutes by fast (and expensive) train. If you buy now you could probably get the supereconomy fare of about €15, €60 R/T for 2. But if you wait until you're ready to leave Bologna, it'll be about €27 apiece. There are no major sights in Bologna. It's an interesting university town, so lots of foreign students, but few tourists.
So I went to the train website and noticed that there are inexpensive journeys to Pistoia, which didn't look like they needed a lot of advance booking - and it's only a 30 minute ride. No one has mentioned this town, so I'm wondering if anyone would think this is a good option, especially in January. Thanks.