Train from Florence to Rome

An hour and a half to two hours depending on the train. There is train nearly every hour to Florence and sometimes twice an hour.

Trains in Italy are a snap. As Frank says, there are a couple of different choices, depending on your budget and time constraints.

The fastest, most expensive option is the Eurostar. This gets you there in about an hour and half, and I believe costs about 50 euros. These tickets require seat reservations and need to be purchased in advance. The Eurostar goes straight between Florence and Rome, no stops.

The slower Intercity or Regional trains make multiple stops and take 2-3 hours. I believe they cost around 15-20 euro.

On another note, Rome has a city metro system for getting around that is also easy to use once you figure out which direction the lines run. If you plan to cover most of the tourist attractions in Rome, I recommend using the metro. Florence is more compact and we just walked everywhere.

Thanks for the comments. To reserve the seats, do I simply go to Eurostar.com?

Linda.....sorry, there's some confusion about "Eurostar" which is the channel tunnel service between London and Paris....and "Eurostar Italia," which is the name of a fast train service in Italy. Unfortunately, you can't book tickets in advance over the web, since the Trenitalia site won't take American credit cards. However, it'll be just as easy to purchase your tickets as soon as you arrive in Rome or Florence, using either the ticket window or the automatic kiosks, which are very user friendly. There are "Amica" fares, 20% off, available until midnight of the day before the planned journey. But there are a limited number of those, so don't be surprised if they're all gone when you purchase your tickets.

Linda, I would buy them once you are in Florence. Tickets are readily available and trains from Florence to Rome are plentiful; no need to buy in advance. To avoid waiting on line at the station, you can buy them at the local American Express office. They will take care of everything for you; reservations if needed, etc. The Amex office is located on Via Dante Alighieri; Rick also mentions it in his book.

Happy travels!

Just a note: if you do decide to reserve tickets in advance, be sure to double-check which Florence train station is your starting point. Our travel agent booked us onto an express train that departed from the Florence "Rifredi" station, which we missed because we were expecting to depart from the Santa Maria Novella station. In our case, it ultimately worked out -- we were able to board a train at SMN and just pay the conductor a few euros for the price differential.

Eurostart is about 3 times more expensive than Regionale train.
The trip on Regionale is about 3 hours.
Take a look at traniatlia.com for prices and schedule.
I would buy the ticket at the train station not in advance.

I have a rail pass and a reservation for a day train from Rome-Florence. The reservation says it takes 1hr, 39 min. to get from Rome to Florence. I would assume this is one of the fast trains.