Paris to Venice train?

The fastest trains do Paris to Venice Santa Lucia in 10 to 11 hours station to station. I didn't price them but the fastest trains will likely cost more. And it looks like the very fastest trains are day trains only, takes longer on the night trains.

Try seeing if you can get a plane to avoid the long train ride. In addition to the usual airfare websites, if you click on favorite links above on this page and scroll down to transportation, you'll find some links to intra-Europe budget airlines.

The Night Train will save you 1)a day - leave at night, arrive the next morning 2) money you would have spent on a hotel for that night.

To find night trains from Paris to Venice, go to the SNCF website. Enter "Paris Bercy" and "Venise" for departure and arrival cities, respectively.

After you select the radio button next to your preferred journey, a little blue square with the words "Choisir Ma Place" will appear. Second Class has T6 and T3 (couchettes for 6 or 3 people). First Class has single and double private rooms.

Paris Bercy station is near Gare de Lyon. (Metro stop: Bercy).

Venice has two train stations: the Venezia Mestre station on the mainland, and the Venezia Santa Lucia station in the city itself.

Hope that helps.

P.S. Paris Bercy - Venice takes about 14 hours.

Actually, it could be a 14hr. journey. There is one night train with couchettes that leaves Paris-Bercy at 7:42pm and arrives at Venezia Santa Lucia at 9:39am. NO TRAIN CHANGES ON THE 221 STENDHAL RUN. The fare is about 110 Euro per person but could change depending on your sleeping accomodations. Here's a SAMPLE TRAIN SCHEDULE.

At 14 hours for a train ride, you certainly could look at flying into the Venice airport. I believe that RyanAir flys into Treviso which is a 30 minute train ride from Venezia Santa Lucia. About 130 Euro. Treviso is also a much less expensive hotel alternative to Venice for those wanting a less expensive option.

I like trains and have no trouble sleeping on them so my choice would be the direct night train. It saves the cost of a night in a hotel and allows more daylight hours for sightseeing. For detailed information on night trains between Paris and Italy, including photos of sleeping accommodations, go to www.seat61.com/Italy.htm.

Book ASAP (up to three months in advance allowed) at www.voyages-sncf.com to get discount fares.

However, if I were flying, I'ld take a budget airline. MyAir flies between Paris Orly and Venice Marco Polo. Both easyJet and Vueling fly between Paris CDG and Venice Marco Polo. I would avoid Ryanair because it uses Paris Beauvais and Venice Treviso. Both are outlying airports (especially Beauvais) so there is extra time and expense getting to and from them.

I actually did this in June of 2000. We took the night train from Paris to Venice, with no frills. If I recall, correctly we left in the late afternoon/early evening and were in Venice early in the morning. We were in a cabin that had 6 beds/couchettes. It was perfect for what we wanted. Beds were comfortable, saved on a night's hotel, cheaper than a plane, we were in Venice in the morning, and it was interesting to talk to fellow passengers in the cabin, none of whom were Americans. If you do this, I do recommend to bring your own food for dinner, or if not, plan on eating before you leave Paris and after you arrive in Venice. There's a cart on the train selling snack food, but it was overpriced and looked worse than bad airline food. We happen to have had some bread, cheese and wine, and were glad we had this after looking at cart food. Overall a good experience, would do it again.