Rail Travel from Madrid-Rome over 2 weeks with stops in Barcelona, Nice and Florence in early June

You will have to book on three different websites. Trains in Spain, France and Italy are all operated independently. The trip from Barcelona to Nice is quite long (9hrs+), from Nice to Florence (7hrs+). Florence to Rome is very good at 1.5hrs. You may want to consider breaking up a couple of these first two trips and see some things between each city. Plot your course on Google maps and you can see what other places may interest you. You may have more than 3 home bases. Also, book a high speed train from Madrid to Barcelona asap.

1. That decision comes down to the math. Pass prices currently average $239 per person in your party for 5 travel days within a month, $283 for 7 travel days, or $339 for 10 travel days in 2 months. Since all of these trains (except Cinque Terre to Florence) tend to require seat reservations, the pass doesn't add any hop-on convenience. Each country link along the side of our Global Pass info has more detail for the different countries, such as the price range of passholder seat reservations. Also note that the direct trains from Nice to Genoa (those with no connection at the border, which are operated by Thello) don't accept rail passes.

2. Tickets can be purchased from each country's own railway web site (Renfe, SNCF, Trenitalia) or agents like Rail Europe and Train Line that represent multiple suppliers for "one stop" shopping. Some can be purchased about two months ahead (typical for Madrid-Barcelona), and others 3 to 4 months out, so you might not actually do it all at once.

3. Florence to Venice is a rather long day trip and Cinque Terre could be visited en-route between Nice and Florence or between Florence and Rome for less back-tracking. So think a little more about your itinerary before making a commitment.

Hi Cathy,

That is basically right, or at least not necessarily wrong. (1) would be the case for most people. (2) in one option, right for many people, but you can wait and pay more, or get refundable tickets, and pay more, if that meets your needs.

(3) is going to be easier to manage buying your tickets at the train station, and phone may not be an option on some lines. Reservations are not usually required, and are often not available, on local trains, but it depends. You can buy at the station at any point.

Other points: Some of these are short hops, but the train from Barcelona to Nice will take more than 8 hours, Nice to Florence will take at least 7.

Your day trip from Florence ot the Cinque Terre will run you 2-3/4 hours each way. That would be too much for a day trip for me.

You will be rolling past some pretty great stuff on the way to Nice. I don't mean in a scenic way, I mean you will be passing it by.

Seat 61 is a great website to use as a resource for train travel. https://www.seat61.com RAILeurope would be my last choice for booking rail tickets. Their pricing is higher, sometimes much higher, than tickets from the country specific site. When I have difficulty using a country's website, I turn to loco2 https://loco2.com/ If for whatever reason I choose to not use loco2, I would look at using Trainline. Trainline is now charging small fees which they do not seem to disclose and it is not clear when they charge their fees. The fees have been quite small, but I personally, would like some transparency on when they'll be charged.

I would not day-trip from Florence to Venice. The city deserves a lot more time than that and an abbreviated day-trip may have you in massive crowds all day long. No sense in going somewhere to have an experience like that.

However, if you do take that day-trip, this is another train ticket you'll want to buy in advance. You'll need to take one of the fast trains, and that will be awfully expensive for a day-trip if you make a last-minute purchase.

Two weeks is a rather minimal amount of time to do what you're proposing. Barcelona is, for me, a minimum-5-night city. Most people going to Nice want to visit multiple small towns along the Riviera and up in the hills. You have several long train days, so you don't have anything close to two weeks of feet-on-the-ground sightseeing time.

Thank you so much for the replies! I will ponder this additional information and speak with my family about making changes to our draft itinerary. I did realize the Barcelona to Nice and Nice to Florence legs were going to be long, all day commitments. We live in central Texas and are used to long road trips in cars; we are looking forward to experiencing trains. :)

I didn't realize making a day trip to Venice from Florence would be so challenging; maybe we can find a tour guide in Florence to take us there and back in one day (probably pricey but possible?); I had thought about renting a car for that day, but read that parking was a challenge in Venice.

I am trying to balance the urge to see everything with a "stay longer in chosen cities" approach with less packing/unpacking. Our hope is to sample what we can and take good notes for future trips!

I would consider eliminating Nice and flying from Barcelona to Florence. You could add Venice for several nights and the trip there and from Florence to Rome would give you the train experience.

No mode of transport will be faster than the fast train from Florence to Venice, which takes two hours each way. But my preference is to spend more time in Venice. The only "challenge" is having to leave.

A day trip from Firenze SM Novella station to Venezia S. Lucia is not that difficult. You can take an high speed train at 8:30 AM and arrive on the grand canal at 10:35.

The return train used by most day-trippers departs to Florence at 7:25 PM. The real challenge is not hating Venice when you visit it this way.

A tour operator would buy the train e-tickets in your name, ask +5 € for the inconvenience and then wait in Venice station holding a sign with your name on. The only faster mean of transport to the center of Venice would be an helicopter flying over the mountains.

Parking in Venice is not challenging, it's expensive. After a certain point parking a wheeled mean of transport becomes impossible for all except Jesus.

You could fly from Barcellona to Venice, spend one night there and take a train to Florence. Walking around Venice after dark, when the hordes of day-trippers have left, is an unforgettable experience.