Should I book Italian trains now or buy tickets locally?

Pisa to La Spezia and the Cinque Terre are regional trains and can be bought when you are there. They are always the same price and have no reservations.

Cinque Terre to Bologna are regional trains as far as Florence, then a Freccia train to Bologna. You can buy that when there as well as Florence to Bologna is a relatively short trip, so likely no big discounts.

Bologna to Vienna should be bought as soon as it is available to secure a discount. You may find the best price from OEBB, the Austrian carrier that operates these trains. It is almost a 10 hour train journey with a train change in Innsbruck.

For regional trains, there is no advantage to booking early. The price doesn't change, there are no reserved seats, and they don't fill up. For faster trains, you can often save money by booking in advance. The Trenitalia app is very convenient. to use. (I didn't see the previous response until after I posted; sorry to repeat).

Thank you! Silly me I meant Venice not Vienna!

Yes, go ahead and buy tickets for Bologna to Venezia S. Lucia as soon as they become available to secure a discount, being aware that you must pick an exact train and the ticket is only valid on that train. If you want to maintain flexibility, you can buy when you are there, paying full price.

Thanks Sam.

The only reason to buy any ticket ahead of time is for the discount that MAY be available. But discount tickets have limitations -- mostly no refund and no change. The Regionale train ticket is the exception as it good for any Regionale train within the time period your Regionale ticket is valid. The price of a Regionale train ticket never changes.

Ok Thanks this is really helpful. Looks like I have a fair few options.

Trains are mass transit. They are used by normal people to go about their every day business. Just like you do not book the NY Subway in advance most people do not buy tickets in advance.

Most railways run on a fixed supply principle. They have a line, buy a number of trains for it and then run them the whole day, irrespective of demand. The better railways even run them at exact intervals.

My suggestion is this: Look up times and prices for the routes you are interested in for today, next week, and a month from now, and compare. That will give you an idea of what walk-up and discounted fares are like.

Thank you. I’m in Sydney and had no idea how things work in Italy. So many people have told me to pre-book my travel before booking accommodation. I’ve seen some places I’d really like to lock in, but I was worried about not having my travel sorted first. I’ve also come across FlixBus, which looks like a superb option.

When you book accommodation, make sure you can cancel or change without a fee/loss of payment. The you can be a bit flewible.

Flixbus is not a superb option. In that part of Europe long distance busses are for people for whom price trumps everything, even personal safety...

If you are from Sydney the way to thing about the European train network is like this: Just imagine that Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth were only a couple of hours away from each other, so that their respective urban/regional train networks overlap. Going to the station, buying a ticket, and then just getting on a train is how most people travel. You should not worry about not being able to get a ticket, just like you would not worry about that in Sydney. Going from La Spezia to Bologna is as trivial as going from Sydney to Newcastle...

WengenK thanks so much! That makes sense now! And Lin great tip to book accomodation to be flexible- albeit ususally a little more expensive.

The fast long distance trains can sell out so waiting to buy on the travel day might be a problem getting the train you want

As a for instance, the Frecciarosso that departs from Bologna to Venice 30 minutes from as I am writing, still has 36 2nd class seats left, including 4 pairs where you could be seated together.

Trenitalia has about 16 or 17 direct Frecciarosso high speed trains running direct from Bologna to Venice every day. Each have about 380 2nd class seats, plus about 56 business class seats, as well as 10 superdeluxe 1st class seats. In addition, the private operator Italotreno has 10 direct trains every day with similar seating capacity. There is also a direct Regionale every hour that is unreserved, a bit slower due to more stops and lower top end speed.

So the chance of getting shut out when you want to travel is extremely low.

Sam is correct. I have never seen a sold out train except during the Christmas holidays. Our experience is limited to the week between Christmas and New Years one year. But other than that we have always been able to buy last minute seats.

We thought trains were never sold out, but on Saturday, October 11th, when we flew into Rome at 6:00am, the 10:00am fast train from Rome to Lecce in Puglia was already completely sold out. No idea why.

We ended up renting a car and driving, rather than going back to the airport from Termini. Thankfully, we always get ourselves onto Italy time for two weeks before we fly, so no jet lag, and the driving was fine. Had to get to a cooking class in Lecce. Still, even now that we know this can happen, we would probably not advance book a train for the day we fly in. Late planes seem more likely than sold-out trains.

Thanks everyone, this gives me a great insight. I'll go about sorting our plans- finalising itinerary and book accomodation.

Rome - Lecce is indeed a route with not a lot of trains. Probably because there is a lot of engineering going on that route.

But when we are talking about routes like Milano - Rome or Bologna - Venice you will always be able to travel more or less at the time you want, even at the last moment.

Thanks Wengen.