Train Reservations - Florence to La Spezia

Hi Brenda. For Florence to CT, just wait and buy tix when there. For CT to Venice, no reason to drive to Milan. There are two routes - via Milan or back thru Florence. Either way will involve at least one non-regional train, so can book ahead ONLY the non-regional legs to save money if you are OK locking in a date and time. Or just wait and buy when there if you would rather pay more to stay flexible. Use web site trenitalia.com. Enjoy your trip!

Almost all trains from Florence to the CT are Regionale trains. No seat reservations permitted. You can't buy online any farther than 7 days out from the time of travel. Best to buy them when you arrive in Florence. These are "open" tickets good for 60 days. You can get on any train making that run within the 60 day period (unless this has changed recently). Like buses, you validate your ticket, get on and find your own seat. If no seats, you can stand. For this particular run, the trains originate in Florence so the carraiges are empty. Just get there a bit early and get on early. This ensures a seat. For your journey to Venice from the CT, again, you can easily get these tickets when you arrive in Florence. You can even get them before you depart in Rome. You can buy them online now, at the ticket window in Rome or Florence or at a electronic ticket machine in Rome or Florence. Just make sure that you know you date and time of travle and that you have picked out the run you would like on www.trenitalia.com. Here's a LINK to the morning train schedule out of Monterosso on July 24. You can easily look up travel for your particular date. Unfortunately, the runs from the CT to Venice have gotten worse with many more train changes. We used to get to La Spezia early, grab something at the McDonald's in the train station, jump on the 7:53 to Bologna and make one train change for Venice. Not that way anymore.