Italy Train Travel and Reservations

Are you looking at the Trenitalia website? You can also look at the Seat61 website, which give tons of helpful info about train travel in every country. New times are usually posted in June, but Seat61 will tell you when the best time is to buy tickets and via which vendor....

https://www.seat61.com

As the other reply indicated, the best website to check train schedules is Trenitalia. Given your travel dates, note that not all schedules may be posted yet beyond 10 June, as there will be an update then. Therefore you may not be able to buy all tickets this early.

Your trips will involve a combination of express trains and Regionale trains. Reservations are not offered on Regionale trains, nor are there any discounts for advance purchase tickets. Therefore you can simply purchase Regionale tickets in Italy, either from a Kiosk or staffed ticket office. However DON'T forget to validate those prior to boarding the train on the day of travel, or you'll risk hefty fines which will be collected on the spot!

You'll need to know the Italian names of each of the stations you'll be using. Many cities have more than one station.

Are you planning to visit the destinations in the order you listed?

There are only two sites to use, those of the 2 competing companies that run the trains and decide the summer schedules: italotreno.it/en (only long distance trains) and trenitalia.com/tcom-en (both local and long distance trains).

The reason you see only a few trains now is that there is a minor timetable change on June 10 and the complete schedules beyond June 10 haven't been published, yet.

You just have to wait and use a date before for planning. Be wary of re-sellers' sites.
Gmaps is quite reliable, but it shows what's running today.
From trenitalia's p.o.v. there is no Cinque Terre: each village has its own station.

The high speed (Freccia) line seems to have their July schedules up and prices (if you can commit now) are very low. The regional trains (such as to Assisi and the Cinque Terre) won't come into view until probably May or even June. There doesn't seem to be a set date for schedules to be published. You don't really need reservations or pre-ticketing on the regional lines anyway.

Hey - when you're in Assisi look me up! I'm there with Assisi Performing Arts - an international music festival celebrating our 18th season in Assisi. Concerts just about every day (sometimes 2 a day). We're there July 2 - 17. I'd be glad to help you discover the many layers of Assisi!

edit: Frecce has only part of their July schedule up and not all discounts are showing. I compared the list to last year's. 60-90 days out is probably going to be your best chance for the best prices. For the ability to 'change your reservation' you'll pay a bit more, but still it can be worth it. These trains are clean, comfortable and really fast. Enjoy!

Thanks to all that replied. The information was very helpful!

Another thing about using the Trenitalia site - you need to put in the earliest time of day you want to travel, then it will also show you all the rest. Granted, the schedule changes in June, but you can get a pretty good idea of what's available by looking for trains a few days from now - and also setting the time. Edited to add that it uses a 24 hour clock.

Trenitalia also requires that you use the Italian spelling of the city names: Venezia, Milano, Torino, Firenze, Genova, Roma, Napoli.

The train schedules I was seeing on the Trenitalia website the past few days are not showing up today. Maybe it's a problem with the website today?

Thank you all for this fantastic information. I understand that there will be a schedule update on or about June 10th.
My question is when should I start looking to purchase Super Economy tickets for trains in mid September from Milan to Florence and Florence to Genoa and finally from Genoa to Milan?
Thanks

A re-seller that sells tickets at lower price than the 2 companies that run the trains? I wonder how do they make it.

Don't trust too easy sites, they are making easy online something that isn't so easy on the ground. You'll see no Venice, Florence and Rome written anywhere inside Italian train stations. On departure boards, monitors and station signs you'll see only Venezia S. Lucia, Firenze SM Novella, Roma Termini and Roma Tiburtina.

There is a reason if trenitalia.com makes you familiarize with the real names when you are in your living room and not when you are in a crowded station. They are the ones that must help confused tourists and answer their questions.

Both Italotreno.it and Trenitalia.com send you a pdf with either a PNR code to tell (high speed trains) or with a bar code to show (local trains). It's nothing special.

Someone in this site recommended www.loco2.com- it . . . . had better rates then Trenitalia

Be careful. loco2 is a British site, and quotes by default in £ (GBP), though you can switch it to € (EUR). Trenitalia quotes in € (EUR). I would not expect loco2 to undercut Trenitalia. Be sure you are not comparing apples and oranges!

you can either get a pdf to download the paper tickets- or you get paperless tickets where they send you a code you show on the train from your smartphone

Same as Trenitalia. PDF is good, not ticket pick up at station and it gives you a warm feeling to have a ticket for an exotic destination in your hand.

Let me reiterate- someone on this site recommended -www.loco2.com- I found it very easy to use compared to Italo and Trenitalia- matter of fact one of those sites was down yesterday with a message saying to visit later)- Loco2 had the same prices from what I could see but showed you both companies- found the site easy to use- can change the monetary from pounds to euros- and ordered my tickets in under 5 minutes.

Thank you Traylaparks for recommending Loco2.com

For booking rail tickets, another site to consider is www.trainline.eu, as they sell tickets for not only Trenitalia, Italo and other Italian networks, but several other European countries as well (France, Germany, Spain, etc.). Registration on the site is required but after that's done, it's very user friendly.

I am looking to travel from Roma Termini to La Spezia June 12 with my family of 6. I see from the posts that the train schedule is not set yet for this time period as the times will change after June 10. To clarify, and I understand that there will be a schedule change, but does this also mean that I will not actually be able to book a train until June 10?

I just did this for my trip in May and I used an app called Loco 2. They had the best prices and times and made it so easy for us since we hadn’t been before. I booked all my big travel days ahead of time too!

Joseph, Some train times have been posted for the period June to December, some haven't. The others will come, but it might be a few weeks yet. Definitely long before 10th June. Just keep checking regularly.

Thank you very much.