I have a 1 pm flight from Rome. I am thinking of spending the night before in Florence, taking the Eurostar to Rome in the morning (leaving about 9:30 AM) and then the train to the airport. Am I going to get into trouble? Other than staying in Rome or in Florence, is there another option that would be a convenient and interesting place to stay the night before my flight? I will be coming from Florence.
Posted by
Los Angeles, CA, USA
1003 posts
Marilyn, yes I think you will be in trouble, because the train to Rome takes about 90min, then even if you timed it perfectly, the train from Rome to the Airport takes about a half hour so you are looking at getting to the airport at the EARLIEST at 11:30am (later if you have to wait in between the eurostar and the airport train), which is not enough time for an international flight and really pushing it for flights within europe. I'm the type who gets a bit paranoid when I have to fly, so I would just stay in Rome... if you wanted to maximize your time in Florence you could always take an evening train to Rome and just stay near the train station for the convenience but not losing any time of your day before your flight in Florence.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
At least this isn't is bad as the guy who wanted to do this from Venice a few months ago. And, his flight was earlier. For an international flight to the U.S. out of FCO at 1:00pm, you need to be at the airport by 10:00am. That means that you need to be in Rome Termini about 9:15am to pick up the Leonardo Express to take you to the airport. Backing up further, you need to be on the non-stop Florence/Rome Eurostar by no later than 7:30pm. It's do-able with some planning.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
1317 posts
Marilyn, perhaps our experience for our upcoming Nov. trip will help you decide.
Our original plan was to finish our RS Florence tour Saturday morning, take the first Eurostar to Rome (leaves about 7:30am), and head straight to the airport for a 1:30pm flight. So, if you want to stay in Florence, take the early train!
However, this is where we got in trouble. We were supposed to fly Rome-London and connect from London-Seattle. NWA changed the time of our London-Seattle flight and made it impossible to make the connection from Rome (which landed at 3:20pm, the second flight left at 2pm!). Since we are going to be in Florence that morning, we could not switch to an earlier flight out of Rome.
Fortunately, the NWA reservations agent was extremely helpful and changed our flight home to be Florence-Amsterdam and Amsterdam-Seattle.
So, to recap: it IS doable, but you are taking a risk. If you don't want to stay in Rome proper, perhaps consider staying somewhere on the outskirts of the city.