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buy Rome-Florence train ticket before leaving?

Posted by (Mpls, MN, US) on

We'll be leaving in a few weeks for Italy. We arrive in Rome, will take the Leonardo Express to Termini, and then will immediately take a train to Florence. We want to take a high speed train (prob ES) to get their sooner rather than later.

I'm torn about whether or not to buy the ES ticket online. I've read some sites/posts that say to buy ES at least a day before, others that say buying the day of should be fine.

My concern: What if I buy a ticket and then our flight into Rome is delayed? (That wouldn't surprise me.)

Our flight arrives at 1:00 p.m. My thought has been to leave at least 3 hrs for baggage, passport control, train to Termini, and pre-book an ES train for around 4:00 p.m. using the Flexi fare. The Flexi fare, if I'm reading the info correctly, would allow us to change to a later train if our flight was late. The Flexi fare is about 10E more than the Standard.

Thoughts? Should I book the Flexi fare before we leave? Wait until we get there and buy the Standard? I appreciate and welcome your suggestions!

Cynthia

Posted by
6898 posts

The Rome to Florence train journey is one of the most travelled in Europe. Are you sitting down? There are 55 trains a day going to Florence from Rome. There are 5 trains just between 4:00pm and 5:00pm. There's another 4 between 5:00pm and 6:00pm. You don't need advance reservations for this journey.

Most Italians walk up to a self-service machine, buy a ticket and get on. The only time they may buy tickets in advance is for holidays. Just be like the Italians and either walk up to the ticket window or use the self-service machine. It speaks English and will automatically assign seat numbers to you.

I suggest that you come into Rome Termini from the airport, have your first gelato, chill out while looking around at people buying their tickets from the machine, buy your tickets and jump on the train. Then you can laugh at how easy it was.

Posted by
3313 posts

I wouldn't worry about this. Just buy the tickets when you get to Termini. Yes, you can probably save a little money by successfully buying in advance online, but you can also have some peace of mind knowing that there are plenty of trains and you can just pick the first one that works for you when you arrive.

Posted by
1449 posts

Larry is right; this is one of the best served routes in Italy. You WILL get on a train.

BTW another option is to go to the window at the Rome Airport where you buy the ticket to the Termini station and have them sell you the ticket on to Florence from Termini.

Posted by
7 posts

Thanks so much for the input! We'll definitely wait until we get there. Thanks again!

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