Hello all! My wife and i are from the States and doing a winter visit to Spain and Italy. Reason being one of our fav groups is playing in Madrid, The Lumineers and my fav folk singer Gregory Alan Isakov is opening. We did this in 2019 seeing EltonJohn in Antwerp :0 My real question i have is about the seating and is there 1st class reserve seating, it looks like the cost is $56 for both of us/2nd class general unassigned seating. Thank you for reading and we took a fast train from Brussles to Amsterdam in 2019 and im real glad we splurged on first class it was real nice

All seats on the Florence to Rome high speed trains are reserved, regardless of whether it's 2nd class or 1st.
It's a 90min trip, with trains departing 3 or 4 times every hour on Trenitalia trains, or maybe 2-3 per hour on Italo trains.
Book your tickets directly from the co's running the trains at:
www.trenitalia.com
italotreno.it

thank you for you quick reply but i cant seem to reach a point where i can book the 90min train, all i can reach is the 3.45hr 2nd class train :0(

i must be doing something wrong, because i can only obtain tickets for the longer train ride.

It may be that all services have not yet been posted online because you're booking too far ahead. There's also typically a new load of timetables in early December.

btw. There isn't really a 2nd class train. There's frecce and intercity (both faster) and regionale (slower). Regionale trains don't require a seat reservation but you do need to validate your ticket prior to boarding (unless you purchased it online). There's no price advantage to purchasing regionale tickets in advance but there can be with the fast trains.

Do you know about this site? https://www.seat61.com - everything you didn't know you needed to know about train travel.

When? Right now Italo (the private train company) is selling up to Jan 11th. TrenItalia (the government owned train company) I think is a few days behind. If you're looking further you won't be able to book just yet.

Italo posts sales virtually every Friday afternoon Italian time. The sales run until Noon Monday. Buying during the offers can often save you 30+%

Or you could just buy on walk up. The most you'll pay is €46 at the last moment.

Italo has basically three classes.

Lowest the seats are 2x2 with an aisle down the middle.
The next step up are older first class cars with a 2x1 setup with an aisle down the middle.
Then Prima aka first

IMHO the only advantage of Prima is you're more likely to get a working power outlet. You might get peanuts I think. Other than that the lowest is virtually the same. But they do put Prima on sale some weeks and if it is on sale the price increase can be very small.

Yes, correct ! They haven’t post the schedule yet for February :0)
thank you for confirming that, i love this forum