Florence to Rome

My guess is you'll have to go to Rome the night before.

But there's no need to guess: either of these sites have the train schedules.

http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

http://www.ferroviedellostato.it/homepage_en.html

starting station s/b Firenze SMN station and make sure your ending station is Rome Airport, probably Roma Fium. Aeroporto on the Bahn website.

I tried the bahn site and it would not let me look at June 2010. i am trying to book hotel rooms etc, knowing this is peak season. I suppose I will just play it safe and stay in Rome.

Thanks for your suggestions. You have been helpful in responding to a few of my posts in the past. I was a newbie traveler in 2008 and found you and others to be a fabulous wealth of information!

The actual train schedule won't be available until around 3 months prior to your travel date.

In the mean time, you could look at schedules to get an idea.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. The current train schedule shows a 5:50 train that arrives at 8:30. Just know that will not work. I think we will just leave Florence on the 18th and travel to some of the Tuscany towns and make our way to Rome.

Any suggestions on this decision versus renting a car?? Maybe a tour that leaves Florence, goes to Siena, San Gimignano, etc and would let us choose to NOT return but travel on to Rome.

Guesss thats a whole new can of worms :)

It's actually worse than the 0830 arrival, because I think you must have pulled up the schedule for Florence to the main Rome station, Rome Termini, I'm looking at the schedule and see the 0550 departure from Florence that arrives at Rome Termini station at 0824--that's downtown Rome, not the airport.

The earliest arrival at the airport is 0923. So, we've now confirmed that the train, the morning of, isn't going to work for you.

You mentioned renting a car: what's your thinking about the details of that, how many days of driving, etc?

We are now thinking that we will give ourselves the 16th and the morning of the 17th and then rent a car and drive to some of the hill town spots. We can make our way to Rome and spend the night close to the airport, making that early flight more do-able. And words of wisdom on driving? Where to rent the car, towns to visit and possibly stay for the 17th and 18th?

Option B: We can take a tour via The Original Walks of Florence on the 18th, return to Florence and take the train to Rome late afternoon of the 18th.

Thoughts on us driving and exploring on our own versus a tour???

and then rent a car and

Couple of possible thoughts--as you've discovered, the original plan won't work.

Generally the advice on this forum is to spend your last evening enjoying Rome proper, and then take a shuttle or cab to the airport in the morning. Hotels near FCO are often overpriced and not all that interesting.

If you want to rent a car, don't drive in Florence or Rome. Perhaps you could rent a car and explore a bit of Tuscany or Umbria the first two days. Then you could drop the car off in Orvieto, take the train 1 hour to Rome, and stay there the night of June 18th.

At this point I feel compelled to list our itinerary. We are leaving on May 31st from Austin to Rome. Stay in Rome until June 4th and then leave for our 10 day cruise to the Greek Islands. Arrive back in Rome on the 14th..take a train to Venice, Venice 2 nights, train to Florence on the morning of the 16th. Stay in Florence on the 16th and maybe a few hours on the 17th......then the decisions begin. Our flight to the states leaves from Rome at 9:50AM on the 19th.

I am liking the idea of renting a car, just not sure there is enough time to do this properly. Are we better off going the tour route?

Don't make this more difficult than it needs to be. Your flight is fairly early, so counting on the train to be there when you want it to be and then getting to the airport on time (3hrs early) will be a task. Not to mention you will be sleep deprived. Have you ever departed from Rome? They now have a funky setup where you have to go through security at a separate terminal (Terminal 5) and then hop a shuttle bus back to the departure terminal where you catch your plane. Terminal 5 is only for U.S. and Israel bound flights because of the extra security precautions.

I always spend the last night in Rome to catch my flight out in the morning. You never know when a transit strike will occur, foiling any well-made plans you have laid out. Better safe than sorry.