rail stations in rome

Ostiense is closer to Piazza Navona than Tiburtina. The cheaper trains take a lot longer, usually double the time of the high speed trains. If you book the high speed trains in advance you can find discounted prices.

@SamSn: that is not the case at all - ItaloTreno, which operate high-speed trains taking the same (actually slightly less) travel time than the ones departing from Termini, are state-of-the-art AGV trains. ItaloTreno is a private railway operator using different stations in Roma (Tiburtina and Ostiense) and Milano (Pta. Garibaldi and Rogoredo). They use the same main stations in Firenze, Napoli, Venezia, Bologna.

Hmmm... hadn't heard of this before. Is there an opinion as to if it's better to use ItaloTreno or trenitalia? What is the difference? Kim

Andre, I stand corrected. I was not aware the Italo trains were operating at Ostiense, I thought they only used Tiburtina Station.

Chris, I believe that Termini and Ostiense are about the same distance from Piazza Navona. Therefore you could either travel to Florence via Italo from Ostiense (current fares shown at €32 PP) or Trenitalia from Termini (current economy fares at €39 PP). Whichever method you choose, I'd probably use a Taxi from your apartment to the station when hauling luggage. Happy travels!

@Kim, If referring to the high speed trains, there isn't much difference between the Trenitalia versions and the newer Italo service. Here are a few points on the differences..... > Italo only operates high speed trains and at this time only has limited routes (mostly between the larger cities). They don't have any trains equivalent to Regionale and don't service smaller towns such as those in the Cinque Terre. > The Italo service is a private firm while Trenitalia is the state-owned railway. > As Andre mentioned, the Italo trains use newer AGV technology rather than the TGV used by Trenitalia and others. One difference is that propulsion in the TGV cars is located in the engines, while in the AGV cars there are motors built into the bogey (wheel) assemblies. Both versions are built by Alstom (AFAIK). They all run at up to 300 kmH when they get going outside the cities. > Italo has a newer and reportedly more "user friendly" website for booking. Some here have reported a few "issues" when booking on the Trenitalia site. > In some cases, the Italo trains use the same stations as Trenitalia (ie: Napoli Centrale, Firenze SMN) and in other cases they use different stations (ie: Milano Porta Garibaldi, Roma Tiburtina & Ostiense). Cheers!

Italo trains offers free wi-fi, which is a nice bonus!

The number 492 bus goes from the side of P.Navona on Corso del Rinascimento at the northeast corner of P Navona, the bottom of same Corso, and Largo Argentina on its way to its terminus at Tiburtina station. I did that several times (from Prati which is across the river) in both directions. The bus is very frequent during and around rush hours, less frequent in the middle of the day and evening. For Ostiense station you could take the Trastevere tram from Largo Argentina and change onto the number 3 tram passing Piramide and the walkway to Ostiense. Or from Corso del Rinascimento there is number 30 straight to the station Ostiense. Number 30 workdays - Monday to Saturday and number 130 on Sundays and holidays. I considered the Ostiense option but ruled it out for 2 reasons - unless you are traveling to Naples or Salerno it is less convenient because of the 20 minutes extra train time if heading north; and not all .Italo trains go there. About that free wifi... yes it is offered and yes it is available but on our journeys between Roma and Bologna we found it very very intermittent and when available quite weak. I remembered all the tunnels between Firenze and Bologna but had no idea that the high speed line between Roma and Firenze is equally full of tunnels. When out of the tunnels there are even gaps on the flats. You need to receive a text message to a (preferably Italian) European mobile phone and you then have to reply to the link. In one case the link never came and in the other it was not easy to put in. It was reasonably OK on an iPhone but not easy on a netbook. The internal network with news, sports, weather, what to see and do, etc., was easily available. News and sports were all in Italian as were the virtual newspapers.

Thank you everyone who posted to my question. This is the first time I have used the graffiti wall and it has been very helpful!