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How far in advance should I buy train tickets and sightseeing tickets?

Hello everyone,
We will be visiting central and northern Italy from May 2 to June 7. We plan on traveling by train most of the time with the exception of renting a car for Tuscany and the Italian Alps. How far in advance should I purchase the train tickets? And should I purchase directly from Trenitalia? Some of the train routes would be from Milan to Parma, Parma to La Spezia, Florence to Bologna, then Bologna to Venice, and Venice to Verona.

I have read in many places that Italy is more and more crowded every year. So how far in advance should I purchase skip the line tickets? Some places we are interested in are the following:
Duomo and rooftop in Milan
Last Supper in Milan
Uffizi Gallery and Accademia in Florence
Duomo in Florence
St. Mark's Basilica in Venice
Doge Palace

Thank you so much for your help!
Karen

Posted by
21250 posts

Milan to Parma can be done with direct regional trains for 12.10 EUR anytime fare. Every 2 hours from Milano Centrale taking 1 hour and 38 minutes, so you do not need to buy in advance. Same with Venice to Verona, every hour at 10 past the hour costing 10.20 EUR and taking 1 hour and 28 minutes.

Other routes you can save some money buying nonrefundable tickets. So wait until your plans are fixed. The earlier you buy, the cheaper the price.

I would always say to buy from Trenitalia as they run the trains. Anyone else just buys then from Trenitaiia for you and tacks on some commission.

Posted by
303 posts

Buy tickets to the sites you want to see as soon as they become available. For reference, I bought tickets to St. Mark's on 8/25/23 for our visit on 10/17/23; for the Doge's Palace Secret Itineraries Tour on 8/24/23 for our visit on 10/16/23; and for the Duomo Complex (the Giotto Pass) on 8/26/23 for our visit on 10/20/23. Also, make sure you use the official ticket sites for any and all places you want to buy in advance.

Posted by
28290 posts

To my knowledge, the Duomo and rooftop in Milan do not sell out very early. My friend and I were in Milan this August. We walked into the ticket office and got tickets after a short wait in line. Hers included the roof, and I think that was timed, but she basically headed over to the appropriate entry point and got in quite quickly. My ticket was just for the church interior, and that didn't have a specified entry time. I'm not suggesting you wait until the day of your visit to buy tickets; we might have been lucky to find a reasonable number of people buying tickets that day. (It was very hot in northern Italy, and a lot of the locals had headed for the mountains or the beach, I'm sure.) However, this is not something you need to worry about very far in advance.

Tickets for The Last Supper sell out instantly when they go on sale. You'll need to set an alarm for the appropriate time in the middle of the night, and you will still need luck. Have all your credit cards (and maybe also all your debit cards) in front of you, because you never know when a ticket website will reject a card. Search this forum for recent posts about getting The Last Supper tickets to learn about the timing. This is one of Europe's toughest-to-acquire tickets.

Online entry tickets for St. Mark's in Venice can be purchased at this webiste: https://basilicasanmarco.skiperformance.com/en/store#/en/buy?skugroup_id=2524. I did not purchase in advance, so I stood in a long line in 2022 which, surprisingly, got me in the door in about 30 minutes. The online tickets definitely sell out more than a few days ahead of time, but I'm not sure how early you need to buy. You can monitor the situation on the linked website to see how availability looks for the weeks leading up to your visit. It's pretty typical for morning tickets for early (but not insanely early) entry times to sell out first at sightseeing attractions. But in this case you might not want the early tickets; I think it's around 11:30 AM when they turn on the lighting that makes the mosaics really sparkle. The place is spectacular even at other times, however. The museum add-on is highly recommended, and you may also want to see the Pala d'Oro.

The Secret Itineraries Tour at the Doge's Palace is popular and sells out in advance. If you're not interested in that, I suspect you don't have to buy a ticket for the Palace very early. I'd make incomplete purchase transactions for a week or two before the date of your visit to monitor how ticket sales seem to be going. I'm not sure when you need to start doing that--maybe a couple of months ahead of time? This is the ticketing website for the Doge's Palace: Palazzo Ducale tickets.

Sightseeing tickets are seldom changeable or refundable, so my preference is not to buy them until I need to. Others may be able to tell you about the timing they employed, but be aware that there will probably be more people in Venice next year (Holy Year, plus traffic there seems in be increasing annually), so you may want to be more conservative in your approach than what others suggest based on their experiences, if they are not extremely recent.

Posted by
8014 posts

Tickets for the Last Supper, like some other attractions in Italy, seem to be snatched up by tour companies the moment they become available, for resale later to customers at inflated prices. You’re competing with their banks of fast computers, trying to get your tickets while they snatch as many as they can, to scalp later.

Do set your alarm, and be ready the second they come up for sale where you are, whatever time it is in Italy. Years ago, maybe before the computer ticket competition had really started, we arrived in Milan, got in a taxi, and asked for Il Cenacolo (Last Supper). They had some tickets available at the entry desk, and we got in. Maybe that would never happen now, but perhaps it’s a last-minute possibility, if you don’t wind up with tickets.

Posted by
28290 posts

We've had a very few reports of success getting walk-up tickets. I think it sounds worth trying if The Last Supper is really important to the traveler.

Posted by
1721 posts

Wow!!! Thanks so much to everyone who has responded so far. All of your information is very helpful!

Sam, it sounds like you are saying that there will always be seats available on the regional trains. Is that right?

And thanks to Reederman, acraven, and Cyn for your advice about skip the line tickets. acraven, I appreciate all the time you took to type your lengthy response. I had read about the Jubilee Holy Year, but for some reason I thought it would only affect Rome. I didn't even consider Venice and Florence would be affected. If I had known, we might have waited to visit Italy in 2026, but too late now. We have our airline reservations and all of our hotel reservations made. What is the Secret Itineraries Tour at the Doge's Palace?

I'll check all the websites, and will make reservations a couple of months in advance. Will find out when Last Supper tickets go on sale. I think it's 3 months in advance.

Once again, thank you so much! Everyone is very helpful.

Posted by
28290 posts

The Secret Itineraries Tour at the Doge's Palace: https://palazzoducale.visitmuve.it/en/pianifica-la-tua-visita/special-itineraries/secret-itineraries-tour/. I haven't been to the Doge's Palace at all, but this tour is often recommended here. It allows you to see some uncrowded areas of the palace, then you're turned loose to see the areas open to the general public. Capacity is limited.

Regional trains do not have assigned seats. Most of the time there are plenty of seats. I honestly don't remember whether I've ever had to stand; that certainly happens often on public buses, trams and subways in cities (and the vaporetti in Venice). On trains you'd be unlikely to have to stand long, because someone would soon get off the train and you could grab that seat. It's helpful not to dally when you board. That will also make it easier to find a place to stow your bag if it isn't small enough to fit in the overhead rack.

Posted by
21250 posts

Regional trains do not have seat reservations and never "sell out". Both the trains I mentioned originate at your starting point (Milano Centrale and Venezia S. Lucia), so if you just board when the train is spotted on the platform (10 to 15 minutes early), you will be the first on board to get a seat.

Posted by
73 posts

Just an FYI regarding The Last Supper, tickets went on sale today (Dec 10) for Feb 1 through April 30, 2025. (I purchased tickets this morning for my March trip.)

Posted by
28290 posts

And a day later this is the situation:

December 2024: Tickets available for Dec 17-20 and Dec 29. (I'm surprised everything hasn't sold out.)

January 2025: Month totally sold out.

February 2025: Sold out except for Feb 11 and Feb 26.

March 2025: Weekends totally sold out, but most weekdays (Tue-Fri) have tickets available.

April 2025: Weekends sold out except for Sat, Apr 12. Apr 19-30 sold out (Easter is April 20), but tickets available on all weekdays (Tue-Fri) the first three weeks of the month.

Posted by
52 posts

I’ve been keeping an eye on tickets for The Last Supper in March but unfortunately missed the first two days they were on sale. :( Now, the only tickets available for my preferred date are for the 8:15 a.m. slot. As a result, I decided to book tickets with an English tour instead, which still has plenty of availability.

Posted by
1721 posts

To everyone who has responded, thank you so much for your detailed and helpful responses.

We will be in Milan on May 4 and May 5. Arriving on May 3 but I certainly don't want to see The Last Supper on arrival day because of jetlag. So we only have 2 days to choose from. Does anyone have any idea when these would go on sale? Based on when the tickets for February 1 - Apil 30 went on sale (December 10), do you think this means the next batch of tickets will go on sale about 6 weeks prior to May 1?

Would it be preferable to buy the tickets for an English language tour, like feiliao did?

Posted by
1721 posts

Thank you, ChristineH. I think that is what we will do.