Pre-Purchase Italy Rail tickets

You really do not want to purchase tickets through a middle-man site; you'll save money going directly to the Trenitalia website. To get to Vernazza from Venice will require about 6 hours of train travel and will also require... probably two legs on regionale trains. You cannot buy regionale trains in advance (or at least not until 7 days in advance with a printed PDF ticket). The good news is that Regionale tickets NEVER sell out. The bad news is... there are no assigned seats on a Regionale train so you may have to stand! You can certainly wait till you get to Italy and buy these at the train station in Venice at one of the train station kiosks. Note - only Regionale trains go from La Spezia to Vernazza. If you want tickets in advance, and you can get your credit card to work, and your times and dates are fixed... you can go to the Trenitalia website and buy your tickets in advance online. This article also has an explanation on how to "read" the Trenitalia website. The best way to save money is to book a MINI discount ticket. You can save up to 70% with a MINI discounted ticket. You really don't need tickets in advance as few routes sell out unless there's a holiday. Travel agents in the Italy with the FS logo in their windows can book these for no charge. So you have many options - other than paying more to "ticket vendors" capitalizing on Americans' need to have a ticket-in-hand.

Michele, I understand your desire to purchase tickets before leaving the U.S. but I followed the advice of Ron and others on this board and it worked out fine. My husband used an English/Italian language translator and typed up brief requests to give to the ticket agent at the train station when we arrived in a city. The request included the usual facts, e.g. day/time of travel, departure/destination (all the info I got off the DeutscheBahn website). When we arrived in a city we purchased our train tickets for the next leg of our trip before we left the station. It worked out great and we were able to relax knowing that all we had to do was show up at the train station in a few days with the ticket. Carole

Thanks to all for your advice. I"ll plan to buy my rail ticket when I arrive in Venice.

Michelle, it's so easy to buy your train tickets once you arrive in Venice. The trains are so frequent, buying a day or two in advance really works. The Venice train station (Ferrovia stop on the Vaporetto water bus) can be a bit crowded but there are ticket machines. The ticket machines will prompt you in English, make your seat assignments where needed and accept your U.S. credit card. Here's a sample link to the train schedule. http://orario.trenitalia.com/b2c/nppPriceTravelSolutions.do?car=0&stazin=venice&stazout=vernazza&datag=30&datam=03&dataa=2011&timsh=06&stazin_r=Staz_DA&stazout_r=Staz_A&timsm=43&timsm_r=43&lang=en&nreq=5&channel=tcom&npag=1&lang_r=en&nreq_r=5&channel_r=tcom&npag_r=1&x=44&y=15

Larry, Thanks for the info. I will travel from the St. Lucia Sation. I'm sure they have machines, too. We arrive on a Friday afternoon, so will have time then or Saturday morning to buy tickets to depart Monday morning. I'll figure out then whether to use a machine or go to a window.

Michele, There's also a Travel Agent in Venice (Oltrex - close to the Rialto Bridge, as I recall) where you can buy your rail tickets. That saves a ride to Venezia Santa Lucia. Details are listed in the Guidebook. Happy travels!