Trains in Italy- I'm overwhelmed!

The Amica fare is offered on many, but not all, routes. It is a 20% discount off the standard fare. If any of the allotted number of seats are still available, you can get Amica fares by booking up to midnight of the day before departure. Major stations have ticket machines with an English option and they accept US credit cards. Buy your tickets in Italy.

What is the "rail website" at which you are looking? RailEurope only has fares (what they charge, which is more than you would pay over there) for a limited number of the fastest and most expensive trains. If you want a true picture of what the fares will be over there, use the Italian Rail (Trenitalia) website.

Jill, you are best to count on the standard fare. You might be able to get the Amica fare if you buy before the day of travel (as Tim points out). For these journeys, you can easily wait until you get there to buy your tickets. Note that many of your runs will be on local R trains (Florenc/Pisa, Monterosso/Siena, Siena/Rome) and no reservations are permitted. However, if you absolutely must have tickets in hand, you can buy them on www.italiarail.com. If you buy early, the tickets that you get for the R or IC trains will be "open" tickets. There will not be a time or train number on the ticket. There will be a 90-day start and ending date on the ticket. This means that you can jump on any R or IC train on that run during the 90-day open window.

You will most likely need seat reservations for the high-speed from Venice to Florence but, again, you can get these at the train station in Venice.

Jill, this is not as complicated as it seems. I'd suggest that you check the bahn.de website to determine which trains and departure times you'd prefer for each "leg" of your trip. Although most of your trips are fairly short, some routes may have one or two changes? The website will also indicate which trains have compulsory reservations (probably the Venice-Florence trip at least).

I wouldn't bother "booking in advance", as it's so easy to buy tickets there. My usual method is to purchase tickets for my outgoing journey when I arrive in a particular city, or perhaps a day or two before departure. P-P tickets will also include the reservation fee, if required. If you have reservations, the ticket will specify the Train No., Car No., Seat No. and whether this is aisle or corridor. However, be sure you board the train that is listed on the reservation, otherwise you'll be fined!

In addition to buying your tickets at Venezia S.L., you can also buy these at a travel agent. There are a couple close to Piazza San Marco as I recall. These are listed in Rick's Guidebooks.

For your trip to Monterosso al Mare, you'll be accessing the C.T. either via Genova or La Spezia (most likely Genova), so you may have to change to the local train there. The times for the local trains are listed in Rick's Italy books.

Happy travels!

Jill, its not hard at all. Here's what I do for my trips to Italy.

1) Browse the Trenitalia site and get the times the trains run so you can plan your itinerary (eg. if its possible to take a train with fewer transfers but it leaves at 8am, I want to know before my trip and plan my previous evening accordingly). And what matters more than fare is total journey time (to me, at least). Travel times can be hours different depending on the speed of the train you get and how long you wait for connections. For example on my upcoming trip I'll be going from Monterosso to Perugia, and it can take from 5 to 7 hours depending which train(s) I choose.

2) When in Italy buy your tix at the automated machines. They have an English menu and are easy to use. If you get the amica fare, great, you save 20%, but train travel isn't exorbitant in any event. I buy my tix a day before I travel so I know what train I'm on, but I have the flexibility to leave town early or stay an extra day depending on how its going.