Train from Florence to Venice

The only reason to buy in advance is for saving money. If money is no object, buy when you want to go at the station. You may save a lot of money by buying in advance, but you will be committed to a specific train, just like an airline ticket.

No less than one train per hour. Look at www.trenitalia.com. Click on the British flag for English.

To add to Sam's helpful info - use station names Firenze S. M. Novella and Venezia S. Lucia. The 'base' fare of 49 Euro is what you will pay if you buy at the last minute in Italy. Enjoy your trip!

To add to Bob's and Sam's excellent answers, if you are tempted by a train to Venezia Mestre you should know that that is the mainland station a whole causeway away from the islands of Venice.

If you have to leave the train at Mestre you will need another ticket to Venezia Santa Lucia and you will need to wait for and change platforms for a Regional train. It is cheap, but a pain in the (insert appropriate anatomical part name here)

And to add to Sam, Bob and Nigel's excellent advice, you could also see what rates are for Italo trains between these two cities. This is a reputable rail company (it is NOT a middle-man ticket booker) offering 'fast train' service largely between the bigger Italian cities, and has competitive prices. It does service both Mestre and S.Lucia in Venice so the same caution Nigel presented applies to these trains, and just as with Trenitalia, you can usually land better prices by purchasing in advance although you have to commit to a specific train/time.

http://www.italotreno.it/en

Thank you! Excellent advice.

Only thing I'd add is if you buy your ticket the day of travel.. or really any time .. be aware that specific seats are reserved. We ended up with seats that didn't have a table or decent window. I don't think the others were more expensive - we were just given the end seat on the car - so you might want to ask about the specific seats you're reserving.

Try

https://www.raileurope.com

Salor,

I hope you do follow the excellent advice given by Sam, Bob, Nigel, Kathy & K.huddleston & book your tickets on the Trenitalia or Italotreno websites & "NOT a middle-man ticket booker", such as RailEurope.

To the already excellent advice you received I will add that the standard class ( formerly 2nd class) is just as good as business class on a plane, therefore no need to spend more money for having fake leather upholstery.

Do not use RailEurope, they don't show the full schedule.

And I'll just second Roberto's excellent advice: standard class ( formerly 2nd class) is just as good as business class on a plane, therefore no need to spend more money.

I traveled for over a month in Italy and never bought a ticket in advance. The only mistake I made was taking a cheaper trip from Rome to Naples at 5pm on a Friday...no seat reservation so I stood for three hours in the heat and stench of elbow to elbow bodies...but at least I held my ground by the door so that I could get some air each time we stopped.

Note that the reserved seat in the middle of the cars on the Freccia line (my favorite) are the ones to book up first. The seats at either end of the car are just fine unless you plan to sleep. The electric doors slide open as people pass through to the bathroom or cafe car the latch and swoosh of the wind make sleep pretty difficult.