I'm planning a trip to Florence, but my AA miles won't get me to Florence, only to Rome, Milan, Pisa, or Venice. From my home in the US Midwest, the routing to Venice looks the best.

What's a good way to get from Venice to Florence? Take the train, hire a driver, fly?

Thanks for any advice.

Celia

Train . . .

train

Yep, train.

But Wouldn’t Pisa be a much shorter and easier train trip, assuming the OP doesn’t want to visit Venice? (But also definitely train)

Yes, by train, Pisa is closer than Venice to Florence. But not by a whole lot. Celia, do you want to visit Venice too, or is this a trip only to Florence? Do you have to round-trip through the same airport?

If you are not visiting Venice, but going direct to Florence, then bus or cab to Venezia Mestre railway station and then train to Firenze SMN would be pretty simple.
The train from Mestre to Florence is about two hours.

I took the train from Florence to Venice two weeks ago. I have also driven from Florence to Venice. The correct answer is take the train.

Depending on which regional train you take it's either 50 minutes or about an hour Pisa to Florence. It's almost two hours high speed train from Venice. So quicker Pisa. Easier? The easy thing would be to take the bus from Pisa airport to Florence. Only €6. Walk out the departures board the bus and be dropped off basically at Florence train station. OTOH taking the train means walking to the Pisa mover. Taking the mover to Pisa Central. Then taking the train to Florence. Bus easier and cheaper. Maybe slightly slower.

Train or car. In May- September there are very nice views. I have chosen train.

Thank you all.

Doug, Pisa would be better than Venice on the way to Europe, but worse on the return trip, requiring an overnight somewhere en route. However, the arrival time if I go to Pisa is better than to Venice. So I'm torn.

Jean, I don't want to see Venice again this trip; I'm just planning on Firenze alone.

And I don't need to transit through the same airports both ways. Is there a better routing I can do with AA Miles?

Thank you all for your advice.

Celia

Can you buy enough extra miles to go directly to Florence for about the same total price as connecting to Florence from Venice or Pisa??

Book trains as early as possible at Acquista il biglietto con le nostre offerte - Trenitalia or www.italotreno.com - 2 competing train companies running trains on same tracks and same stations - book whatever is cheapest. www.seat61.com has lots of advice on booking your own tickets - general train info like 1st vs 2nd class check BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com. Discounted tickets are train-specific and can't be changed so when flying leave lots of extra time between train and plane.

Best way to connect with trains is to take bus or taxi to Venice-Mestre station - on mainland across lagoon from Venice proper and not Venice Santa Lucia (SL) in Venice proper and longer to get to I believe. There are also more trains from Mestre to Florence than from Venice SL.

It isn't a question of miles; AA just doesn't fly to Florence. Their only partner airline that does is Iberia. So I am also looking at flying to Madrid, then taking Iberia from there to Florence, which I can do with my AA miles. But that makes for a long trip, so I'd probably overnight in Madrid. I thought I could avoid that if flying into an Italian city would work instead.

Celia

Have you been to Venice -if not stay at least a day there and in any case trains only take about 3 hrs - better than overnighting in Madrid and flying IMO - even if you've been to Venice it is always nice to re-visit IME.

If you fly to EITHER Rome or Milan Malpensa on AA the train from those cities (not including the train trip into the city from either airport) takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes

The train from Pisa to Florence takes about an hour (fastest timing).

OP says she could fly to those places on AA but routing is worse than to Venice. Meaning I guess changes and a longer total plane transport?

But (if you plan R-T) I'll bet the flight home out of Venice is very early AM and that is a real hassle.

American has a NS to VCE from Chicago so I gather that is what the OP considers a good routing; the departure from VCE to ORD is at 2:50 PM

<I don't want to see Venice again this trip; I'm just planning on Firenze alone>

If you don't want to visit Venice, I would most definitely find a different airport to fly in and out of.