My boyfriend and I will be traveling to Italy. We are wondering if we need to buy our train tickets in advance. We will be traveling from Milan to Venice, Venice to Florence, Florence to La Spezia, and La Spezia to Milan. Your advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. :)
Posted by
Green Bay
20216 posts
You don't need to buy tickets now, but if you want to save money, buy nonrefundable tickets now for the best price. Slight problem right now as Trenitalia has not yet scheduled the trains in and out of La Spezia after June 12.
Milan-Venice and Venice-Florence trains are available to book now. Are you arriving at Milan airport and planning to head to Venice right away? If so, you might want to buy that when you arrive in case a delayed flight causes you to miss the train, making a nonrefundable ticket worthless.
Posted by
the Netherlands
2487 posts
Not if you only want to use the »regionale« or »regionale veloce« trains.
For the »Frecce« or Intercity trains advance buying can give you huge discounts. Discounted tickets are tied to a specific train at a specific hour. If you don't take that train, the tickets can be thrown away.
Do it directly on the website of the Italian railways: www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en (payment by credit card and printing at home).
Posted by
Charleston, SC, USA
922 posts
I also recommend creating an account on Trenitalia if you plan to buy tickets in advance. You are supposed to get an e-mail confirmation with your ticket when you purchase it, but there have been reports of this not happening by some on this message board. You may also need to use PayPal to buy the tickets as some US credit cards get declined by the issuer. Depending on your departure dates, you may be able to save a lot of money if you can get super economy tickets.
Posted by
bedford, indiana
459 posts
Karla, give this guys website a look, it was very helpful to me before I went to Italy. We dont have trains or subways where I live so I had little experience traveling by rail. If you spend a bit of time on his site you can learn about the trains, the ticket process, and how to get around over there. Have a great trip. http://www.seat61.com/Italy-trains.htm#.VR1X5st0wfg
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32219 posts
karla,
If you're willing to commit to a specific train, date and departure time on the fast trains, you can buy tickets up to 120 days before travel and save money. The discounted tickets are sold on a "quota" and when the tickets are sold out for one price tier, the prices move up to the next tier. Note that the cheapest tickets are non-refundable and non-changeable once purchased, so choose carefully before you hit the "Buy" button!
On some segments you'll be using a combination of fast trains and Regionale. There's no point in buying advance tickets for Regionale trains, as there are no discounts and those tickets come with restrictions. Just buy tickets for Regionale trains at local stations, either from a Kiosk or a staffed ticket office. NOTE that with locally purchased Regionale tickets, you MUST validate these prior to boarding the train on the day of travel, or risk hefty fines which will be collected on the spot!
On some routes you can also use the competing Italo Treno high speed trains (ie: Venice to Florence). These sometimes use different stations, but with Venice and Florence they use the same as Trenitalia.
You can buy tickets online for both Trenitalia and Italo on the www.captaintrain.com website, at the same price as offered by the rail operators. The Captain Train website is very user friendly.
Posted by
Lexington
49 posts
Unless you are traveling at a very busy time, I would wait and buy the tickets at the station, maybe a day or two ahead. The ticket machines are easy to use, just choose "English" and then follow the prompts. I did not find the tickets to be expensive and even splurged on some business class tickets. You might look up the schedules ahead of time so you know what time the trains you might want leave and arrive.