Train from Florence to Nice, France

www.trenitalia.com

Most of that route - a very slow and long one - will be by Regionale or InterCity trains. No booking possible on Regionale ones, mandatory payment for passholders for InterCity trains.

Don't use either of the websites you mentioned which both are not complete. Use the website referenced by Roberto above.

Sure hope you are doing a whole more traveling than this trip if you want to come anywhere near breaking even on the pass.

lan,

Booking your train rides will depend to some extent on which trains you'll be using. I'd like to "second" Nigel's suggestion to NOT use the two websites that you mentioned. You'll find better and more complete information using the bahn.de website.

That trip is going to take the better part of a day, with at least two train changes. One of the quickest routes is a departure from Firenze SMN at 09:00, arriving Nice Ville at 16:08 (time 7H:08M, train-specific reservations compulsory for the first two trains, two changes at Milano Centrale and Ventimiglia, Freccia / InterCity / Regionale trains). The change at Ventimiglia is inevitable, as that's the border crossing point.

Since you're travelling with Railpasses, I wouldn't bother booking anything online. Just go to Firenze SMN station a day or two before you'll be travelling and buy the reservations, which will be €10 PP for the Freccia train and €8-9 PP for the InterCity (can't remember the exact amount). You can buy them either from the automated Kiosk or from the staffed ticket office (usually LONG queues though!) You may find it helpful to have a look at the instructions for using the ticket kiosks on the excellent Seat 61 website, which states "To buy a ticket or make a railpass reservation, touch 'BUY YOUR TICKET'."

For the last leg from Ventimiglia to Nice, reservations aren't possible so just get on the train with your Railpasses, find a seat and you'll arrive in Nice in about 45 minutes.

Happy travels!

I did a quick peek using Roberto's link on a random date and got the Italian website mainly because I am physically in Italy. The shortest I saw was five and a half hours from Florence to Ventimille where you pick up the local commuter train to Nice. No train changes in Milan but in Pisa, or Genoa on the Italian website. This goes to show that there's more than one way to do it depending on the website that pops up. The 7:39 which gets you to Ventimille by 1:00 p.m. leaves from one of the other stations in Florence, not Santa Maria Novella.

Thank you everyone. All your inputs are really helpful.

We are spending 15 days in Italy + 9 days in France, originally planned to drive from Italy to France, but the car rental drop fee of 750 Euro changed our plan. :) That's why we're returning the car in Florence and take the train to Nice.

We did a rough calculation and the Eurail Pass for 5 days of rail will save us some $.

I tried to book our train tickets and was stuck at Ventimiglia, but now I know why. :) The InterCity train tickets are not bookable on-line. :)

(http://www.bahn.de/i/view/USA/en/index.shtml) is definitely a lot more complete than www.eurail.com & www.raileurope.com. I could see that there are multiple departures and don't have to worry about getting into Nice. www.seat61.com is a wonderful site too..

Thank you everyone for sharing your ideas & experience. Cheers.

We did a rough calculation and the Eurail Pass for 5 days of rail will save us some $.

Rough calculation can cost you money. Are you aware of the extra costs involved with a pass in Italy and France - such as the mandatory reservation charges for passholders in Italy on anything faster than a Regionale? Or the mandatory charges in France for passholders using TGVs? Or the rationing of TGV seats to passholders in France which may make you take a different train (or day) than you wanted, or have to pay short notice full fare on a TGV trip?

What did you go to do your rough calculation? Are you aware how to get the really cheap (some as low as €9 or €19 per leg) fares in France and Italy? Do you know about Prems or iDTGV?

You are the first person in a long time I have seen who after checking in Italy says that the pass will save money.

Can you let us know what your remaining legs are?

If you want to use the pass, fine, and they can be easier - at a price. We just want you to go into the transaction with your eyes open, knowing the full cost and problems.

When I did the calculations of separate train tickets in Italy, found that it was about the same amount as the passes, and with the extra day of train on the pass, it seemed like we were saving $$. I will go back & look at these fares more closely. I might be able to cancel the rail pass too if picking up other fares make sense. Thank you for the alert.

Try the Trenitalia and SNCF sites so you can see the prices of advance purchase tickets. The train I saw from Florence to the border was 29.50 euros each.