Transit time from Bologna Airport to Train Station

The Marconi Express is a monorail who connect the BLQ airport to the Central train station: https://www.marconiexpress.it/in-viaggio/stazioni-e-collegamenti/
It takes about 10 minutes to arrive and there is one every 7 minutes.
From landing to arrive at the airport exit takes probably 20 minutes: at BLQ the airplanes don't arrive directly at the gate but there are shuttles. On top of it probably you could lose other 20 minutes for baggage claim.
In my opinion landing at 4pm and having a train at 5pm is a too short time. If everything works fine is doable without hurry, but everything should tick like a Swiss clock.

Jane, I do not think it is likely you would make the 5:00 pm train, even if your flight arrives on time and you disembark quickly. The Italo and Freddie high-speed trains leave from very deep platforms at Bologna Centrale, and it can take 10-15 minutes to reach them from the street level. It is well-signed but a long walk, with several flights of escalators.

This gives a good description of the train station and the transport means from the airport:

https://thetravelfolk.com/bologna-train-station/

Best thing is to just not buy a ticket in advance. Make your way to the station and buy a ticket for the next train. The walk-up price for Bologna to Venice on the fast trains is 39.-

The other thing about the little “tram/train” from the airport to Bologna Centrale is that there will be a very long line up of people waiting for it.
It’s only a few cars long and doesn’t hold large numbers of people.
(Unless they’ve improved it since our visit.)
We saw the length of the non-moving lineup last year and took a taxi in instead.
It was about E18 , I think.

You will not make a train within an hour of landing….best to buy a ticket when you get to Bologna Centrale.

Buy the tickets a full price when you get to the station. The full (Base) price Bologna-Venice is not that high to warrant taking the risk of missing the train pre-booked in advance.

Wow, what a consensus. Thank you all; I will take your advice and buy our tickets at the station. We'll probably end up arriving in Venice later than we had hoped, but hey, we'll be arriving in Venice!

Thanks, everyone!

When we had a flight from Bologna to London last March, I asked on Tripadvisor (the Italy forum) for advice on the best way to the airport from our apartment near Piazzale Maggiore. The locals uniformly advised us to take a taxi from the nearest taxi rank (3 blocks away) rather than take the monorail (Marconi Express), due to the long lines. Also, at 2 X €12,80 for 2 people, it is more expensive than a taxi.

Thanks, Lola. That may help get us to the station in time for the 5:00 pm train. Maybe. Good to know, though, regardless.

Remember that at 4/5pm the taxi will be much slower than the monorail. You should calculate half an hour from airport to train station. Is rush hour that moment and due too several works along the route several roads will be jammed by traffic.

Between Italo and Trenitalia there are about 2 trains per hour, and being flexible you just buy a ticket for the first one you can catch once you are at the station...

The Italo train is not until 6:21 pm. Another option is the Regionale Veloce at 10 past every hour. If you can make that one, it will get you to Venice before the 6:01 pm Trenitalia Freccia , even though it runs slower. Anytime price is 14.20 EUR per person.

Thanks for the additional information. I guess I'll have to quell my OCD-adjacent tendencies, and just check out the situation when we arrive in Bologna. The monorail if the line isn't too long would be faster; the taxi would be less expensive, but would have to contend with traffic.

And I'll just check the "departures" boards at Bologna Centrale to see what the next train to Venezia Santa Lucia is.

Thanks again; every one of you has given me useful information.

I love this Forum.

You should download the Trenitalia app to check schedules, track trains in real time and buy tickets from your phone. There is also a .Italo train app but they only offer fast trains so while it is useful for that it does not cover local regionale trains or other options.

Also just to reiterate the warning about the unexpected depth of the Bologna train station. It is not like Milan or Florence where the tracks are laid out in front of you but instead it's more like an airport or something. I took a fast train out of there for the first time last year and was surprised by the size of the train station underground.

Have a great trip,
=Tod

Oh, Jane, no need to even look at the departure boards (as trains' final destinations might not be Venice either), just get to a ticket machine and tell it where you ae going and it gives you the best next options! The best feeling is to not have to watch the clock when you are arriving, just show up and purchase. You probably won't have to wait long!

Thanks, Katherine! I probably wouldn't have thought of that.

We tried using the ticket machine in Rotterdam last year, and I found it confusing, so we went to the help desk, where the clerk seemed a bit disgruntled at my request, then sold us the tickets we needed, but directed us to the wrong train and platform!

Note that Italo has hourly departures from Bologna to Venezia. Santa Lucia, at 21 minutes past each hour. Their trains depart from the same high-speed train platforms (16-19) as the Trenitalia ones. The walk-up price is €34.

https://www.italotreno.it/en

For either train company, you could buy the tickets online from the website (or the app if you prefer) while in the airport. Our recent experience with Trenitalia ticket machines is that they require a PIN on your credit card. A debit card with PIN might work. Otherwise you will have to go to a window and see a person.

On Trenitalia, regional trains instead of the high-speed trains are an option. They take 30 minutes longer (2 hours instead of 1.5) but are cheaper—-€14,20 instead of the €36 walk-up price for the Frecciarossa trains. Also note that the regional trains leave from the street-level tracks (platforms 1 and 3-15). Allow 10 minutes to find that track, or 15-20 to reach the deep high-speed tracks.

If you do choose the regional train, remember you must validate it with the machine before boarding.

Traffic as mentioned will be slow by taxi at that hour. Once you are at the Bologna train station you will need to work your way down several floors to the high speed trains. This will take time also. Check the Marconi express online and you should be able to buy tickets in advance... the line to buy at the airport can be long.

Sorry to go off topic, but I am stumped.

If Venice is the destination, why fly to Bologna? Why not fly to Venice?

Linda, I'm beginning to wonder that, myself.

The problem is there are no direct flights from Kraków to Venice that fit our schedule. I did finally find a flight that goes directly to Venice Treviso, but it doesn't fly every day. Had I started this process earlier, I might have just changed our schedule, but we already have hotels and day tours booked in both cities.

I'm trying to accommodate my travel partner, who wants to avoid a journey that entails changing planes. (He also wants to avoid budget airlines, but gave in on that one.) We did consider taking the train the whole way, but finally compromised on a plane/train combination. Our best choices were train to Warsaw, then fly to Venice; or fly to Bologna, then train to Venice. We opted for the second one, and I have already purchased the plane tickets.

Here's a link to my earlier thread on getting from Kraków to Venice, should you be further intrigued: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/poland/35-minutes-at-warsaw-airport

Jane, I will say I believe you made the right choice.

I would much prefer to arrive in Venice by train over flying in. The transport from Marco Polo Airport to your Venice hotel is time-consuming (Alilaguna), logistically complicated (land bus plus vaporetto) and/or expensive (water taxi or land bus plus water taxi). And the Treviso airport, if that is the choice, presents even more challenges.

Besides, for me there is nothing like walking out of the train station with the view of the Grand Canal in full glory in front of you. I often pause at the top of the steps just to enjoy the bustling scene of passing vaporetti, grateful I can return yet again to my favorite city.

https://www.touristbee.com/photos/Italy/Venice-08_2011/imgpages/venice-italy-00.html

Lola, our thinking exactly. And our hotel (Al Ponte Mocenigo) is just a couple of vaporetto stops from the train station, so once the train arrives, we're all but home!

Just to get acclimated to using the ticket machines I (and probably most here) will suggest watching a few youtube videos to see the process. They might have SLIGHTLY different looks to them, but the process is generally the same.