Rome to Venice, Train and Rental Car

My husband and I will most likely be renting a car out of Venice and returning it in Rome this Sept. I suggest going to the AutoEurope or Europe By Car websites and checking out the prices. Both these companies are listed on Rick's website under Travel Tips/Driving in Europe. We have used AutoEurope in both France and Spain and had no problems at all. AutoEurope has pickup/drop off places at the airport and downtown locations in Venice.
Good luck and bon voyage!
Mary

There is no need to book first class seats on the train. The seats are the same size in both classes. The only difference is a free drink and paper. You won't be able to book ahead of time and take advantage of the discounts. You'll have to book your tickets when you get to Italy. Trenitalia is the official carrier and you should check out their website for schedules and prices. the way to save money on the train is to take the slower ones. they cost less money but take more time.

Can't help with rental car as I have never used one in Italy.

donna

Take the train from Rome to Venice, purchasing your tickets in the lobby from one of the automated kiosks located there. They are multi-lingual and very intuitive to use. No discount for early purchase. You can't purchase ahead of time from the U.S. anyway. You will want to take the Eurostar (ES) trains as they are the quickest. Donna is wrong about 1st class. The seats are a little larger, more comfortable, and not as jam packed together. You will be more comfortable in 1st class, but that's your call whether or not you want to pay the extra price. I believe that you can rent a car from Venice proper or from the airport, again your choice. The airport is more likely to have longer hours of operation and to be open on Sunday. I like Europcar, others like Auto Europe. I have also used Sixt. When I prepay with Europcar, I get a discounted rate.

I'm taking a train from Rome to Venice and have purchased my tickets ahead of time. I don't know why some say you can't? I had my travel agent book it for me.

Thanks for the info, I have tried Trenitalia but no success. I've seen similar posts about the difficulty with the website/US credit cards and we have a lot of security on our accounts due to all the travel we do. I will continue to look at the options, I really just like all details confirmed. We normally travel "no reservation" style for the fun, but here lately it's been a headache, so we thought we would do it differently.

I will say that Europcar has BY FAR the best prices (at least in Venice over a weekend-around $290 US vs. 454 euro on some of the other sites).

I think you may be able to buy tickets in advance through RailEurope - anybody know for sure? I was thinking of doing train from Venice to Rome, but easyJet was cheaper than even the slowest train, so we went with that (also due to short time in Italy). When I was looking at the train, it seemed I could have purchased tickets through RailEurope.com -- though it seems they were more expensive than listed on the Trenitalia site.

I just purchased advanced rail tickets for my trip in September through raileurope.com. I found it very easy to use and the prices for one-way, first class tickets were quite reasonable. Also, ticket prices have recently dropped.