We will be arriving in Florence, renting a car, and staying in Val D’Orcia for a few weeks. We will then return the car to Florence airport and take a train to Venice ( we will fly home from there). Everyone says to book the train tickets early but how early can you book? We are going in September. Is taking a taxi from the airport to the train station in Florence the best way to get there? Thank you for your help.

Book at Acquista il biglietto con le nostre offerte - Trenitalia or www.iatalotreno.com - two competing rail companies operating similar trains over same tracks and using same stations. Booking in advance times vary sometimes but simply go to above sites and see how far out they are booking.

Yes Florence SMN the main station in Florence is the one to go to from airport. www.seat61.com has sage advice on booking in advance yourself; www.ricksteves.com and BETS-European Rail Experts for general train info.

I think when I booked my train ticket from Florence to Venice for last July, I was able to book 3 months in advance. You can get deals online in advance. I can't help with the parking situation, as we took a train from Lucca to Florence.

taxis or buses

I would keep the car and drive to Venice. It probably wouldn't be any faster, but it would involve fewer steps.

Tickets typically become available around 120 days in advance. The correct website for Italo (the competing private operator that also services this route, and may sometimes be more competitive than Trenitalia) is https://www.italotreno.it/en

If you are in the southeast corner of Val d'Orcia, you can drop-off car at the Chiusi station if your rental has an office there. You can then take a regionale train from the Chiusi station to the Florence station and then take a Freccia train to Venice. The total trip is about 4.5 hours. Chiusi car rental offices, like many other rental offices in Italy, are closed during the lunch time, half day on Saturday, and closed on Sunday.

ANUJ - thanks for catching my error - about www.italotreno.com being italotreno.it/en!

I'm with Jean here. Why spend half a day dropping the car at Florence airport then getting to SMN? For me, I would eliminate the extra step and drop the car in Venice. Watch for the closing times at the drop off in Venice.

Yeh why not drop car in Venice at car rentals - probably at Piazza Roma and take public boats to your hotel area. Or water taxis.

We are dropping the car in Florence as we have to drop friends at the airport anyway. Just figured the train would be the easiest way to get to Venice. I know we won’t need a car while we are there. Thanks for the train information.

Book your train tickets ASAP as mentioned above and check both train sites.

If we did decide to drive to Venice and drop the car should we drop it at Mestre or Piazzale Roma? We are considering the train and driving options.

I myself hate the drive from Florence to Venice; heavy truck traffic and lots of tunnels, so I probably would drop the car at the airport in Florence. If you do drive to Venice, I think Piazzale Roma is the best place to drop the rental car. You can get a vaporetto there. I live in Italy, so have never rented a car here, but we've parked at Piazzale Roma.
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drop the car in Piazzale Roma, not Mestre

It can be bumper to bumper on the causeway so dropping at Mestre could be a good idea and take shutle train to station.

Looking at the ItaliaRail site today is the first day I can book for September 22. It only shows four direct trains to Venice. One at 6:30 am and the next one is not until 13:30. Will there be other trains put on the schedule in the morning if I wait a while? I was hoping to take a train between 10:00 and 12:00 so as not to get into Venice too late. The traffic to Venice doesn't sound too appealing to me but I don't want to hang around Florence with my luggage for 5 or more hours either.

Use the official Trenitalia site. They're showing many trains for that date, even though it's officially too early to book.

http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en?

You need to use the Italian names, Firenze and Venezia, and don't forget to specify an early time of day to prevent it from rolling over to the next day.

ItaliaRail is a third-party middleman -book direct from the sources of the two train companies serving Venice-Florence - www.italotreno.it/en and Acquista il biglietto con le nostre offerte - Trenitalia. Always book from source unless that is not possible as was once with trenitalia.com folks here say but now reports are it and especially italotreno.com are easy to get to work.

Sorry to ask again but want to make sure I am leaving from and going to the correct stations. I am leaving from Firenze S. M. Novella and going to Venezia S. Lucia correct? There are 5 Venezia stops. I see an 11:30 train now but I think it is still too early to book.