I'm wondering what the fastest route would be, through La Spezia? or Genova? and what are the thoughts on taking a night train. We are a group of 4 friends traveling together. Thanks!
Posted by
US Pacific Northwest
10344 posts
Go here to see the schedules http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/enEnter Venezia Santa Lucia as starting location. You decide which train you want and Trenitalia will take care of the routing. The day trains are ~6.5 hours station to station time, adding the time for getting to the station, etc will eat up most of your day.You asked about night train options, to see those schedules, change the time to 1800. Those take 10 to 12 hours, the night trains are slower regional trains that make more stops, a lot of stops, which prevents some people from getting much sleep. And note how many train changes you have to do on the night train, those will wake you up (unless you can walk in your sleep).
Posted by
525 posts
In planning our trip in Italy, I had made B&B reservations for Florence, Venice and CT before I looked at the train schedule.
It is one or two train changes going from Venice to CT. So, I changed our itinerary to go from Venice to Florence then to CT. If you are going to be in Florence see if you can change your itinerary to go to Venice before Florence then after Florence you could go to CT. I did NOT want to change trains even once and knowing it would take all day to get to CT from Venice. Let us know what you decide and what the rest of your itinerary is.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
For the Venice to CT runs, some runs go via Milan and some go via Florence. The run times are somewhat comparable either way. CLICK HERE to see a typical morning schedule. Just note that train runs originating in "Mestre" are different from the runs originating in S.L. (Santa Lucia). You want Venezia Santa Lucia. Mestre is about 11 miles away. All trains departing Venezia S.L. will stop at Mestre.