I have been trying for hours together to book a return trip from Florence to Venice and back on the ITalia.com website but though it gives me a price for a return ticket - it only shows me the outward journey time etc and when I accept that it will not go further to give me the return.
Can I book on the raileurope site or the italiarail site because there seems to be a problem with trenitalia
Try http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en
Make sure to check the box "one way" if that is what you want. Remember, "round trip" translates as "return" in most websites that use British English. If you do want round trip, check the "return" box. It will give you the outbound ticket, then you pick the train you want, click "continue" and it will give you the return options. Trenitalia does give a discount advance purchase price for a round trip on the same day with direct trains. It's called "A/R Giornata" (Andante-Ritorno Giornata, or round trip same day).
Carrielouz,
Great advice from Sam ;-)
You want to book tickets for a round trip, correct?
Once you click "return" (on the trenitalia site), you will need to choose the time you want to travel to Venice & the time you want to depart Venice, & make sure the dates are the same (for a day trip).
Are you sure you want to take a day trip from Florence to Venice? Travel time is 2Hr 5 minutes each way.... Too long for a day trip, IMO...
I jut tried to book a roundtrip from Firenze Santa Maria Novella to Venezia Santa Lucia on Trenitalia.com, and return two days later, and had no problem. I stopped at the point of entering credit card info.
Did you click on the British flag icon to get the English-language page? As soon as I selected "Continue" after choosing the departure time, the return options displayed; at first I thought it was still the outbound section.
Stick with Trenitalia or their excellent competitor Italo Treno. Both are the real deal, both are very easy to use, both provide a fast and frequent service to Venice. Both allow to easily print out your tickets at home or using a PNR or QR code on a smartphone (safer to print out). Both offer specials and discounts.
Anybody else is an agent, reseller or not genuine.
I prefer to deal with the horse's mouth.
Perhaps there is a button to click to advance to the next page that you have overlooked?
If you are still having trouble, try booking on Italo Treno, a different train company serving that route. Their trains are very nice and their website is more user-friendly than Trenitalia.
Any of those web sites work fine. But there's no roundtrip discount, so I would just book two one-way tickets.
There is big discount for a same day round trip on direct national trains. A/R Giornata
