Help! Late night train from Rome to Venice, tonight

You can use the kiosks to book the tickets, you don't need to go to the counter. I doubt they will be open that late. I wouldn't take the regional train. It will make many stops and you won't get any sleep on it.

Donna

If you arrive at FCO at 8pm, you won't get to Termini by 8:30. There is no direct train from FCO to Venice, according to the Trenitalia schedule.

You can buy the Roma Termini-Venezia Santa Lucia ticket at FCO when you buy the Leonardo Express ticket, some machines take euro and will give change.

The Inter City Night train 774 leaves Termini at 22:35 and the Trenitalia site shows couchettes available for 77.80 euro each. Question is whether it is worth getting to Venice at 5:20, or holing up for the night in Rome at getting the first Freccia train in the morning and getting there at 10:35 for a bit more money and a bit more rest. Only 1st class is available on that train.

Good suggestion by Sam. Rome to Venice is only about four hours. If you get there at 5am, your room may not be ready, luggage dropoff might not be possible at the station. I would sleep in Rome and take the fast train the next day.

Many, many thanks to all who replied! We had a nightmare of a trip, but it was a "first world" nightmare. When I posted our question we had been (nail bitingly) standby rerouted from Boston through Dublin (although at first we were told it was through DUBAI!),then Amsterdam, where we had a 5 hour layover. We had been without sleep for nearly 24 hours and were "running on empty." Your suggestions were really helpful and made us feel less bewildered, especially Sam's.

Rather than look for a pay for a hotel in Rome, given that we were paying for a room in Venice, we took the night train, buying 2 "couchette" tickets. It was a yucky train--not the beautiful fast train we had envisioned, and it turned out we were sharing our couchette with two guys (one kind of scuzzy-looking one who spent the night drinking lemoncello--he did offer me a swig!). My 65 year old husband took the top bunk so I wouldn't have to climb up and down, but it was in many ways the low point of a pretty awful trip.
Anyway, we survived and were rewarded by arriving to a dark,very quiet Ferrovia in Venice, and then watching the sun slowly bring the beautiful city into the new day. Only later did we realize how special that quiet vaparetto ride and walk to the hotel through empty streets was!
And we have a great story to tell now that we're home. THANK YOU ALL AGAIN! This forum ROCKS!