Travelling to Venice

What is the duration of your trip?
Are your flights already booked in and out of Rome or do you have the option of perhaps booking an open jaw to preclude having to backtrack?

You want to visit Venice, Naples and Rome? Don't have flights booked yet? If so then you want to fly into Venice, train to Naples, train to Rome, fly out of Rome.

You need at least 9 days for this I think, and that doesn't include day trips from those cities. If you have less than this amount of time I'd eliminate either Venice or Naples.

Hi Marina, a couple things to consider:

How long will you be on the ground? A little bit of backtracking isn't bad if you have the time to do it in.
How long will the flights be, and consider adding the train on top of that. You can check train schedules on RailEurope.com
You could fly into Venice and work your way down and fly out of Naples or fly into Naples and work your way up to Venice to
save some time and cut out the backtracking. Depending on when you plan to travel, Naples had additional seasonal flights
May-Oct.

You have a lot of possibilities. Good luck!

Sorry, but suggesting that people use RailEurope to check train schedules is just plain old bad advice.

www.trenitalia.com for Italian train schedules

I agree with Tim, RailEurope is a poor choice for checking schedules since they don't list every train. RailEurope is a travel agency and not a train company. Our benchmark for air vs train is five hours, sometimes six. If the train is going to take more than five hours then consider the train. With a plane you need to fact in the time lost getting to and from airport, security, waiting, and general hassle of air travel. Unless you are locked into a RT to Rome, I would look at flying into Venice and home from Rome. Save time and probably cheaper.

You may want to review this section on this site -- https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/online-schedules

RailEurope is used and recommended by travel agents. Besides, it was just a point of reference.

Travel agents probably get a commission from Rail Europe. But it is definitely not the best choice for independent travelers. The best and most complete source for rail routes and schedules for all of Europe is Bahn.de, the German rail site. Tickets are best purchased from the individual train companies. For Italy that would be Trenitalia or Italo ( which has a very user-friendly website).

An option instead of flying into the Venice airport that has been cheaper, faster, and totally doable for us is to fly into Milan and immediately take the train to Venice. Another advantage is that, going by train to Venice, the train station is right on the Grand Canal and you get that immediate thrill of emerging from the station straight into Venice. The airport is farther away and you have to take some other transportation to arrive in Venice.

RailEurope allows you to compare prices between the two companies. I just checked my tickets prices (Italio) purchased on RailEurope and they were the same price as if purchased on the Italio site. Again, this was just a point of reference.

Did you do the the comparison offered on RailEurope, or actually look at Italo?

What RailEurope says is partially correct; they charge the same price for the same ticket class. Apples to apples, so to speak. But they may not be offering the best deal available on Italo, and they add service charges. So they do not mention that oranges may be a better deal. Nor that they add a service charge to their apples, which Italo does not.

We are traveling Naples to Venice on Italo in Prima class in March. I bought 2 Low Cost tickets from Italo for €52,90 each; total €105,80. These tickets are modifiable but non-refundable. The same price for that day is still available on Italo.

RailEurope does not offer the Low Cost tickets for that same train that day, although they do for other trains. They do offer Economy tickets for €59,90, which is the same price as Italo. These tickets are modifiable and refundable ( with a fee). RailEurope then adds a service fee of €7,95 so the total cost for the tickets is €127,75.

But the odd thing is that the RailEurope says the tickets are "40% refundable", meaning if you cancel you get a refund of 40% of the amount you paid. But Italo says these same tickets are refundable with a "40% deductible",indicating you get back 60% of what you paid.

I did price check all sites. I think it's sad that you guys want to attack me instead of help Marina. This was just a suggestion not Gospel.

Jennifer, I don't think anyone meant to attack you personally, sorry that you see it that way.
Your recommendation to use RailEurope is not good or bad, right or wrong- it's just not the best advice.
Travel agents make their money by booking reservations for their clients with providers that pay them a commission- so that's likely why your TA used RailEurope for you (assuming that's the case").

Most of us here are self planners and prefer to do all our own bookings at the source- trenitalia, italotrain, directly with airlines, directly with hotels, etc. By using the actual train company website (for example) we can see all our options, usually get best rates/discounts- with no additional service fees or middle man to deal with.

Explaining the difference and benefits of booking with the actual provider is helping Marina make the most informed choices.

Booking with RailEurope would be akin to booking flights with expedia- very risky- best to book with the actual airlines.

That said, I do make some exceptions - I use AutoEurope- a consolidator not the actual car rental company (Hertz or Europcar or whatever) because they offer me the best service and always a better rate.
Same with booking.com- although I do also book with actual hotel webiste- just depends who gives me the best deal.

Jennifer, no one has attacked you, and it is unfortunate you feel that way. I apologize if my post about Italo prices offended you. But note that Inactuallynagreed that RailEurope offered the tickets for the same price as on Italo. But they do not offer all price categories, and for the same category ( Economy)!their refund conditions are different. And they do charge a service fee on top of the ticket price.

My point is that if you want to help someone, that is best done with complete and accurate information. Rail Europe may have been the best option for you, but it is not the best for everyone, for the reasons several of us have given.

Does RailEurope show a train on their schedules if they have no more tickets for that train to re-sell? I've always wondered it. Maybe they flag it as sold out while the train companies might have some tickets left?

On the example I used, RailEurope showed Flexible tickets (the most expensive) as sold out, while Italo showed them as still available for the same train.

Italo offers five price categories for their tickets: Flexible, Economy, Low Cost, Extra, and Senior.

Rail Europe offers only Flexible, Economy, and Low Cost options on Italo trains, not the two cheapest categories. And as in the example above, a given price category may be sold out on Rail,Europe but still available from Italo.

We flew into Venice, stayed three nights, then took the train to Rome, stayed three nights, then took the train to Naples and stayed three nights. We flew home from Naples. This worked great and we had no backtracking. If you can, check for an open jaw scenario like that so that you don't spend so much time traveling. If not and you must fly in and out of Rome for some reason, you could probably just take the train to and from Venice and Naples.