Train from Como Nord Lago to Venice St. Lucia?

bubba,

That's a fairly straight forward rail trip. There are several possibilities depending on what time you want to depart Como, with travel times in the 4 - 5 hour range.

If you're able to take local transport (Bus, Taxi or whatever) from Como Nord Lago to Como S. Giovanni, your options would be easier. For example, there's a departure at 10:17, arriving Venice at 14:10 (time 3H:53M, one change at Milano Centrale, current fare listed at €27.80).

One important point to note is that schedules for mid-June and beyond won't be uploaded to the Trentialia website until about 15 June, so if you're searching for a travel date after that you likely won't get any results. If you search within the next week using the same day-of-the-week, it should give you a general idea.

Bubba, now I see your second message. Ken has the answer to get from Como S. Giovanni to Milano Centrale by train. This is usually a fast train that is coming from Zurich or Lucern. From Milano Centrale to Venezia Santa Lucia, you simply are on one very nice fast train. You can buy these tickets in Como. Again, you don't need a Eurail pass for Italy. Note that Italy adds a 10Euro supplemental fee for each fast train that you will be on. I see two. Plus, you have to pay the supplemental fee before you get your seat reservations. Point-2-Point is easier and less expensive.

For May 1, you can see the schedules on Trenitalia right now. Here's a snapshot of what I see. http://gyazo.com/44431e73161bcd185c4c21e7581eabec The fares you see are various discounted fares. Worst case full fare is 50.50Euro. You can get some better fares on the Eurocity trains.

Let us know if you need further assistance is buying these tickets in advance from Trenitalia.

It's about a 15-minute walk between the Lago station (served by Ferrovie Nord) and the S. Giovanni station (served by the FS national railway). Both are reflected at www.trenitalia.com.

If you get yourself over to S. Giovanni, trains take half an hour, run not-quite every hour, and arrive at Milano Centrale station, where you can easily connect to Venice.

From Como Nord Lago station, there is service every half hour to Milano Cadorna station, takes one hour, but from there it's five stops on the metro green line to Milano Centrale.

Thanks Ken.
We're targeting May 2 for this 1-way travel. So, I tried to buy the tickets on the Trenitalia site, got all the way to the purchase section, and then the site asked me to "Login." Huh?

I don't have an account. When I tried to set one up, the system booted me out because you need to have an Italian mailing address, not foreign. Mio Dio!
Is there a workaround to this?

Bubba, for practice, I just purchased a 9Euro Eurocity ticket from Como S. Giovanni to Milano Centrale on May 02 as a non-registered user. I received the ticket by email within 60 seconds. Here's how you do it.

1) First, contact your credit card people to let them know that you are going to make an online
international purchase. This will avoid a few problems.

2) Under Passengers, type in your name and surname. That's it. Nothing else.
3) Under Contract-Buyer, select Non-Registered User and fill in all five fields.

4) Select your payment method.
5) Accept the General Transportation Condition.

6) Select Continue and make your purchase.

You can do the same with your journey from Como S. Giovanni to Venice. I just tried a dummy purchase for May 02 and I can get to the payment page. Here's a snapshot of what it looks like. I can easily make this purchase but I don't want to spend 46.50Euro. http://gyazo.com/efb62e6da9f910daf5fe8c106fee896f If you haven't reached this page, you haven't reached the real payment page.