italy train travel
 

We are travelling by train from Venice to Vernazza and three days later from Vernazza to Pisa in mid-July. Should I purchase my train tickets in advance on line or wait until we are in Italy. We are travelling on a Sunday from Venice and while I can find fares and schedules on Sunday from rail Europe, trenitalia pushes my travel to the next day. Any advice is welcome! Thanks

I would purchase all of the tickets at once after you've arrived in Venice.

I don't understand your problem with the Sunday schedule for Venice to Vernazza. Looking only at the Trenitalia website, the latest departure I see is at 17:27 which arrives Vernazza the same day at 23:30 with three changes. (I'd probably pick an earlier departure with only 2 changes.) You could leave Venice as early as 08:27.

http://www.ferroviedellostato.it/homepage_en.html

You don't need to buy the Vernazza-Pisa tickets in advance.

It may be you can't see some trains because they are R trains which don't allow reservations unlike all other trains in Italy where seat reservations are mandatory and your date is too far out. R tickets can only be purchased online 7 days in advance while tickets on the fast trains (AV/ES/ICPlus/IC) can be purchased four months in advance (none of which is possible on Trenitalia with a US credit card as they won't process them). I would not pay the markup to buy tickets from RailEurope as there is really no point. Buy them upon arrival in Italy.

If use the Rail Europe site, it only lists the routes for which they sell tickets. Rail Europe is a travel agency. bahn.de is a good source for rail schedules all over Europe.

I have had the same problems with the Trenitalia website, as they have not taken US credit/debit cards. There have been many threads on Fodor's about Italy trains and purchasing tickets (including one with some great advice / instructions, however the website still did not work for me).

However, as mentioned above and based on previous threads I have posted (I will be going to Italy in July), everyone has recommended purchasing the tickets in Italy. Most regional (short distance) trains / R tickets do not get fully booked and do not need to be purchased early. Plus, RailEurope did have higher rates/additional costs and I have been told tickets can be purchased at any Italian train station.

OR....if you truly want and desire purchasing trenitalia tickets early, there was another thread about a loophole (using PayPal).

>>>Most regional (short distance) trains / R tickets do not get fully booked and do not need to be purchased early.<<<

How could a regional train be fully booked?

>>>OR....if you truly want and desire purchasing trenitalia tickets early, there was another thread about a loophole (using PayPal).<<<

No, you are talking about an old thread and none of that applies anymore.

Thanks everyone!

Hi ti,

For the past couple of years posters have been reporting that trenitalia won't accept credit cards from outside the Eurozone online.

((I))