London, Paris & Italy - train or flight?
 

I am planning to visit London, Paris, Venice, Pisa & Vatican. I was wondering what's the best way of traveling between these places.

I was thinking London to Paris by train -> fly from Paris to Italy. However, a friend suggested that I would save time by flying from London to Italy & then from Italy to Paris. And money wise it would be the same. What do people think - which is a better alternative?

I would go london to Paris by eurostar as it's city centre to city centre www.eurostar.com and book as early as possible to get the best price.

I would then fly Paris to Venice (I believe easyjet flies that route but watch out on the luggage limits).

Then train Venice to Pisa and Pisa to Rome, again booking your tickets as soon as they are available on www.trenitalia.it

Also fly into London and out of Rome to avoid wasting time and money backtracking. Or vice versa.

Thanks Jamikins. Are there direct trains from Venice to Pisa or do I have to go to Florence and travel by road to Pisa?

You have to get the high-speed train to Florence, and from there you can get a regional train to Pisa. You can save money on the train from Venice to Florence if you buy far enough ahead to get one of the advance-purchase discounts. You can buy up to four months in advance on this site:

http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...005817f90aRCRD

There is a schedule change in mid-june, and the tickets might not be available so far ahead right now. The new schedules are usually ready around two or three months ahead.

The tickets from Florence to Pisa should be bought at the train station. You could buy them in Florence, or in Venice before you leave. These regional tickets don't have discounts or reserved seats, so there's no advantage to buying them ahead. In fact, the regional tickets bought online have more restrictions than the ones bought at a train station.

Killm, it would help if you said how long you have for this trip. First it helps determine if what you are proposing is practical. Second, it helps determine how valuable time is in planning.

For example, if you have a month to do this in, then taking a train might be more attractive than flying. You can stop along the way, see the scenery from the train, things you cannot do when flying obviously. Sometimes fastest is not 'best'. Sometimes cheapest is also not 'best'.

To visit JUST the 5 places you have mentioned needs at least 3 weeks in my opinion. That includes your arrival day in London and departure day from Rome. If it is not an open-jaw return and you have to depart from Paris or even worse, back in London, then it affects routing.

I would look up all your options. Look up how much it would be to do all train transportation between your destinations. Then look up how much it would be to fly. Not sure your time frame of when you are going, for how long… the train is great b/c you dont have to deal with all the airport annoyances, but believe it or not, flights with in Europe can be way cheaper than taking the train. I would just compare prices, go with what will save you the most money, unless you are on a time crunch. Good luck!

Flights in Europe cheaper than the train? Not any more, unless over very long distance.

Trains now have budget airline-style pricing.

Paris-Nice from €25, Paris-Milan from €29 www.capitainetrain.com, Paris-Amsterdam from €35 www.thalys.com, Amsterdam to Berlin from €39 www.bahn.de/en and so on.

And unlike planes, no hidden extras: No booking fees, no baggage fees, no extra to reach remote airports.

The only 'trick' is knowing which site to use for which train route, as there isn't one that does it all at the cheapest price - That's why I wrote http://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-tickets.htm...