alienor

My daughter and I are hoping to travel from Florence to Paris the last weekend of April. I can't for the life of me figure out the train schedules. When I go to Rail Europe, they say there is no train. Eurail wants to sell us a pass but we only want one trip; preferably arriving in Paris in the afternoon as our apartment owner will charge extra if we arrive after 7.

Christina

Eurail is a business that sells passes, so that's why they want to sell you a pass. Of course there are trains, you can go anywhere by train in Europe where there are rail tracks, one way or another.

use www.bahn.de to find schedules. It's the German site and they get them from all the national railways. It's a pretty user friendly site. Then when you figure out what you want to do, you have to go to the country's rail website to buy the ticket--that would be Italy or France, in this case. bahn.de won't list prices for many foreign routes, though, but it's a start to find your schedule. You only have one trip, so you aren't going to have a lot of price options, it will be what it is, just variations by class or purchase date.

tonfromleiden

There are trains when you go to the website of the railway company itself: www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en
For independent information on this service go to www.seat61.com/Paris-to-Milan-by-TGV-train.htm

greg

For schedule, www.bahn.com is easiest to use.
If you want to find the price, use the railroad site of the countries involved. For example, www.trenitalia.com shows for 4/24, several options taking 11-12hours. To make it to your check-in time, you would probably have to take night trains with middle of the night train changes.
www.seat61.com for more info on using trains.

It would be probably faster with less hassle and also likely to be cheaper flying FLR-Paris or similar route such as Milan-Paris, Pisa-Paris, Bologna-Paris, etc.

PalenQ

the only way you can arrive in Paris by afternoon is to fly or take an overnight train the night before (changing to the night train in Milan) - so either check flights or take the night train option which could be a neat experience if never done that before - can bring any food or drink on board.

For lots on trains and overnight trains in addition to www.seat61.com mentioned above (good advice on discounted tickets available if you book in stone weeks ahead to get those limited in number discounted ducats and www.budgeteuropetravel.comand www.ricksteves.com. And yes do not even think of any railpass for that limited train travel. check www.trenitalia.com and www.thello.com for schedules and booking discounts - Thello runs the Venice-Milan-Paris night train (on which railpasses are not even fully valid).

RonZ

The train to the Gare de Lyon in paris departs at 9AM and takes 10:37, with 2 changes. You simply book it on the Trenialia site noted above, 4 months in advance for the best fares.

However, the Vueling flight to Orly leaves at 3:10PM and takes 1:40 There is also the advantage that FLR is a small airport, easy to manage, and Orly is much less fouled up than CDG.

flanneruk

The best way from Florence to Paris is to get the train from central Florence to Pisa airport, then catch a low-cost.

Virtually all flights to anywhere from Florence incur a substantial cost premium over flights from Pisa, which is Tuscany's real international airport. From anywhere else in Tuscany than central Florence, it's generally easier to get a bus or train to Pisa airport as well.

cathies

I agree that it's a massive waste of time to do this particular journey by train.

Man_in_seat_61

It's a massive waste of an opportunity to schlep to airports and not see the countries you're visiting, at ground level.

Step 1, simply take any evening or afternoon Frecciarossa high-speedtrain from Florence to Turin in as little as 2 hours 36 minutes for as little as €19 pre-booked at www.trenitalia.com - or go 1st class from €29. It's ticketless, you just quote the booking reference on board.

Turin is a really lovely city, well worth a few hours in the afternoon to explore. Indeed, it's one of Italy's most under-rated, even if you're not a fan of the 1969 Michael Caine film "The Italian Job"!

Stay overnight, the Turin Palace Hotel near Turin Porta Nuova Station is a good choice.

Step 2, next morning hop on the TGV high-speed train from Turin Porta Susa to Paris in just 5h40, pre-booked at www.captaintrain.com from €29 - or from €46 in 1st class.

There's one at 07:39 arriving Paris at 13:19, or have a leisurely breakfast and take the 10:11 arriving Paris at 16:11.

The TGV train has a designer interior by Christian Lacroix, a cafe-bar, and power sockets at all seats. Feel free to take your own picnic and wine for lunch!

It's a leisurely journey snaking through the Italian then French Alps, then at Lyon you join the high-speed line for a last dash across rural France to central Paris, arriving at the historic Gare de Lyon in central Paris, not at a congested airport miles outside the city.

Journeys should be as much part of the experience as the cities at either end - people miss so much by flying everywhere as if they're business travellers!

Man_in_seat_61

Oh, and I should add that for the TGV you just print your own ticket.

You can choose a table for 4 in either class if you're a family (I've used that train with my family with a 1st class family table and we had a blast) or a table for 2 in 1st class if you're a couple.

bvlenci

I've done the overnight train trip from Milan to Paris. It takez a long time, but it's time that you would be sleeping anyway, and you get to Paris early in the day. The train isn't luxurious by any means, more like a Girl Scout camp than the Orient Express.

I've also traveled from Paris to Milan by day train, but the trip was spread over several days. If you want to do that, I'd suggest stopping over in Basel (Switzerland). There are direct trains from Milan to Basel (about four hours), and from Basel to Paris (about three hours). Basel is a very nice town, on the upper Rhine, and not very touristy.

PalenQ

via Basel is about two hours longer than Milan to Paris via France but if looking for a place to stopover that may work though I'd recommend many other towns about Basel, pleasant as it may be - like Turin as Man in Seat 61 talks about.

but to go straight thru it's either 11-12 hours in day or the overnight train from Milan to Paris.

alienor

thank you so much. big help

thursdaysd

Another vote for going via Turin. I spent several days there this year and it was well worth the time. I also took the Paris TGV, getting off in Lyon. The weather didn't cooperate, but what I saw of the scenery was excellent.

Mimar

Rail Europe exists to sell train tickets, often at a surcharge. It's best to buy train tickets from the originating country's train site. See www.seat61.com for all sorts of information about traveling by train in Europe, including the web sites of all the national rail companies. (The man_in_seat_61 is answering your question upthread.)

But are you sure you want to do this trip by train? As far as I know, there's no direct train from Florence to Paris. Do you really want to be changing trains in the middle of the night? Or make a longish stop en route? As RonZ says above, Vueling flies nonstop from Florence to Paris Orly for 50 euros. Easy to get to the Florence airport, easy to get into Paris from Orly, which is smaller and closer to town than CDG.

PalenQ

Rail Europe exists to sell train tickets, often at a surcharge. It's best to buy train tickets from the originating country's train site. See www.seat61.com for all sorts of information about traveling by train in Europe, including the web sites of all the national rail companies. (The man_in_seat_61 is answering your question>

Man in Seat 61 does have a prominent link to Rail Europe last I perused his site - and he hypes discounted tickets as a panacea - fine with that - but I do think his commercial link to RE is thus a bit hypocritical - why profit off such overcharging?