train travel from Florence to Lake Como, Venice, Cinque Terre

1) Unfortunately, a complication for you is that the Trenitalia website does not accept US credit cards, it hasn't for several years. For this reason, you won't be able to buy tickets in advance until you get to Italy, unless you go through travel agents or RailEurope; and those 2 options don't seem popular with people posting here, since they involve significant extra markup. For these reasons, most people posting here wait & buy tickets when they get to Italy, where your US credit card will be accepted by Trenitalia. 2) You can use the Bahn website to determine travel times for the trips you mentioned: http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en * * * It's the German train site but is used by most people here to view schedules. However, it won't give you prices for Italy train trips; but the Trenitalia site will give you prices if you first register on the Trenitalia site. You'll probably want to use the Bahn site to look at train schedules for the "day trips" you mention, looking at the travel times to help you decide whether you want to do all of the trips you mentioned as day trips. Note that the travel times given on the Bahn website are one way station to station times only, that is, the time the train leaves the departing station to the time it arrives at the destination station. To get total travel time, you'll double the times given and then add an estimate of the time it will take you to get from your hotel to the Florence station, wait for the train, then from the destination station to your first sight, etc, and do the same for your return trip. For example, you'll find that the train time from Florence to Varenna at Lake Como is about 3.5 hrs. If it takes you 1/2 hour to get to the Florence station and wait for the train, that's about 8 hours of travel time (3.5 hrs x 2 + 1/2 hr x 2); and then add for how much time you plan to spend actually seeing and doing things at Lake Como.

Follow up to my 1st post: The Bahn site will give you one way station to station times of about 3 hrs to the CT and 2 hrs to Venice. As I said above, add for the time to get to the departing station, wait for the train, and then the same time on the destination end, then double all of that; and then finally all for the time you'd like to spend seeing and doing the things you went to Venice, Lake Como, and the Cinque Terre to enjoy doing. The Trenitalia website will give prices if you register, but won't accept US credit cards as payment online.

Do you have to spend every night in Florence? As Kent points out, those are some pretty long daytrips.

We have family living in Florence temporarily. We don't want to have to move hotels except for a few days at the end of the trip when we will be in Rome. SO, long day trips using the trains seems the option. If travel agents here in the U.S. make the train reservation do they charge a fee? Is that why a travel agent quoted me a price of $242.00 round trip for 1 adult from Florence to Lake Como? The price really sounded extremelly high.

Don't do the $240, it sounds like a significant markup is included in that price. This is why about 98% of people posting her - once they realize they can't buy advance tickets on the Trenitalia website with a US credit card - just decide to wait and purchase tickets in Italy, often on their second day in Italy when it's convenient for them to get to a train station, your credit card will work then.

They do charge a fee. You should wait until you get there to buy tickets. You can also save a good bit of money by traveling 2nd class instead of 1st. There's excellent information on the trains at the following site, with a piece on the difference between 1st and 2nd class at the bottom of the page: http://www.roninrome.com/%20transportation/riding-the-trains-in-italy

Thanks for the information. I guess we will wait and buy our tickets when we are in Italy.

You can go to a travel agent in Florence to buy your train tickets, instead of buying them at the train station. They do not charge a mark up. Be aware that you do have to pay cash if you buy through a travel agent.