My husband and I are planning an Austria/Italy trip for late May/early June of 2009. We need to get from Steyr, Austria to Venice, Italy in one day. From the OEBB website I think this is able to be done in the range of 10-12 hours. This may be a dumb question, but I have never been to Europe and used the rail system- how do I go about buying tickets for this part of the trip? When I click on the Buy option, it sends me to a page in German, which I don't speak. Thanks.

First of all, it's probably too early to buy tickets for late May 2009. Secondly, I'd just buy the tickets after arriving in Austria.

How are you getting to Steyr?

Hi big,

I use http://imtranslator.com/

If you are taking a sleeper train then you should get tickets earlier than the day before you leave.

I find www.raileurope.com easier to follow to purchase train tickets.

In my opinion Rail Europe is the last place to buy tickets. You will be charged up to 2 times the price of buying directly. Their listed schedules also omit many trains.

The Austrian Rail system has a Call center- you can call them with all questions country code 43 - 5-1717

RailEurope can be hopeless/clueless, and they charge like wounded bulls.

See how http://budgeteuropetravel.com/ can help you with your choice of train.

Trains take 10 hours or so, or more. For early risers, there‘s the 8:14AM departure that gets into Venice Santa Lucia at 6:10PM, with two changes of trains en route, in Linz (arr.9:08AM lvg. 9:16AM) and in Innsbruck (arr. 12:30PM, time for lunch, lvg 1:27PM on EuroCity with mandatory seat reservation).

For a later start in the morning, a good connection leaves at 9:14AM from Steyr, arr. Linz 10:08AM, leaves Linz at 11:16 arr. Innsbruck 2:30PM, leaves Innsbruck at 3:27PM arr. Verona Porta Nuova 7:01PM, leaves V.P.N. 7:18PM and arives in Venice Santa Lucia at 8:51PM.

You can save on a night in the hotel by taking the 9:22PM that gets into St. Valentin at 9:44PM, and switch to the night train EuroNight EN 237 that goes all the way and gets to Venezia Santa Lucia at 8:34AM. Reservations on the EN237 are mandatory and best done a long time in advance. It has sleepers, couchettes (bunks - 4 or 6 to a compartment, no privacy but cheap and lets you stretch out), and you can sit up all night in second class (not advisable...).

If you can’t take the EN237, there is another night train, not quite as slick:
6:14PM lvg. Steyr for Linz (arr. 7:08PM), leave Linz at 9:16PM for Kufstein (arr. 9:43PM), and take the sleeper City Night Line CNL40485 leaving Kufstein at 10:09PM, arriving in Venice S.Lucia at 6:38AM. The CNL also requires mandatory reservations and has the same options as the EN237.

Or find out if on your dates you can take the train to Wien (about two hours) and fly with Austrian Airlines, or with the budget airline SkyEurope to Venice’s secondary airport Venice-Treviso (seasonal - you need to research it).

More ideas for your itinerary.

You would probably save time if you went to Linz and changed trains in Salzburg rather than Innsbruck.

Another way is back tracking to Vienna and taking a direct EuroNight train to Venice. There is an EN leaving Wien Südbahnhof at about 20h30 and arriving in Venice Santa Lucia at 08h45 the next moring. That is 12 hours. The night train will save you a day of travel time and a night of hotel expense, less the cost of the bed on the train.

For train newbies you can get up the learning curve at http://tinyurl.com/eym5b.

Have fun.