train Venice to Florence

You are probably looking at date too far in the future. I think that you can only get accurate schedules out 90 or 120 days. Plus the schedules change around June and trenitalia is rather slow to update. To work around this, pick a day of the week that is the same as your desired travel day. for example, June 16, 2011 is a Thursday so pick Thursday, Feb 3 2011. That will give you the schedule and pricing. The schedules generally only change slightly when they are updated.

I agree with Ron. The Trenitalia schedules change twice a year in June and December. Looking for train schedules beyond these dates is risky. Simply pick a date 2-3 weeks out from now on the day of the week that you will be traveling. The schedules will appear. There are about 30-40 high-speed runs a day between Venice and Florence and about 55 high-speed runs between Florence and Rome. This isn't AMTRAK out of Emeryville. Please note that it will be unlikely that you can buy any Trenitalia tickets on their site with an American credit card. Very difficult to do. However, just go into the train station in Venice when you arrive and buy your tickets to Florence then. 2-3 days in advance works just fine. The ticket lines can be a bit long but the ticket machines work great. They will prompt you in English, aissgn your seats and accept your credit card.

Thanks to both of you. On another post I saw a reference to using a Capital One credit card on the trenitalia site with some success. Any experience with that?

Sarah, I have been playing on the Trenitalia site for years. I used to be able to use my credit card until about 3 years ago when the tranactions began failing. I've done the Verified by Visa stuff and it still doesn't work. It seems that Trenitalia uses a large Italian 3rd party bank to conduct their online credit card transactions. They don't seem to like the U.S. credit cards. The Canadians seem to be able to get through but not the U.S. credit cards. Trains in Italy are a whole different experience. Most U.S. citizens have never (or rarely) set foot in a real train station. The Cal Train commuter station at 4th & Brannan in S.F. is close but you don't see the luggage that you see in Italian train stations. Travelers want to avoid spending their precious time in train stations. But, in Italy, its part of thw whole experience. You will not be able to avoid them. In fact, you will quickly fit right in. Also don't fear missing out on a ticket. Most trains in Italy do not run full. In China, they do but not Italy. If you show up a day or two early to buy tickets, you will easily get your tickets. Also, the pizza in the Venice train station is not bad. (BTW, I am a native San Franciscan exiled in Elk Grove)

Thanks Larry and,sorry about your exile! Hopefully you can do a fair amount of traveling and leave Elk Grove every so often. Appreciate everyone's help. I was able to check those schedules and there does seem to be a good selection of trains on the days of the week we will be traveling.

Sarah, if you're thinking of the same posting I am, the poster said that he was successful at using a US Bank credit card, not Capital One. I plan to give it a shot with a couple of different credit cards, to see if I can get some of the new "mini" discounts. More details here: http://www.roninrome.com/%20transportation/trenitalia-changes-promo-fares-again

As previous posters stated you will have to wait till you get to Italy to purch. your tkts. On a trip in July 2009 we started in Venice and to make things easy we purchased our tickets here at the travel agency Oltrex Viaggi, located one bridge past the Bridge of Sighs. I had printed out the trains we wanted from the Trenitalia website prior to leaving home and handed them to the gal wkg. there. The additional charge was only 3 Euros per set of tickets (5 in our group) not per ticket. It was very smooth and we had all tkts and necessary reservations for our entire trip except for our return trip from Pisa back to Florence which we easily purchased at the station.