Train from Venice to Florence
 

Good Morning
We will be traveling by Train from Venice to Florence in mid June. Is it advisable to book train tickets well in advance or do you simply need to book a day or 2 in advance?

Thank you

It is not required to book in advance. There are many trains every day, so you can simply walk up to the train station the day of travel and buy a ticket.
If you want to save money, then you are better off booking in advance. Train tickets on this route (and all high speed routes in Italy) work much like airplane tickets. Last minute / walk up fares are higher.

Yes book early to get nice discounted fares - www.trenitalia.com or www.italotreno.com - two competing railways using same tracks and stations. You can always get walk-up tickets and www.italotreno.com can be cheap even up to train if seats remain,. www.seat61.com has loads on booking own trains - general info BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

>>> Is it advisable to book train tickets well in advance or do you simply need to book a day or 2 in advance?
In which way?
If in terms of price, you can find it out right now. Go to https://www.italotreno.it/en and https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html and find out the cost for trains tomorrow. That shows what you would end up paying if you book a day or 2 in advance. Do the same for your travel dates. That shows what it costs by buying tickets now. Like airfare, non-refundable tickets which makes you commit to a particular train are cheaper.

If you want flexibility, you can buy them at the last minutes provided don't care about how you are sitting. If "we" is two persons, you can probably sit together or close to each other. As "we" gets to be a larger number, there is more chance you get scattered across different part of the same car or even on different cars on the same train. If "we" want to get seats together around a table, it would be better to book ahead. I do this when I travel in a group of 4 and we want to all sit together with a table in between to eat a meal on the way.

I've only been to Italy twice but just went to the train station when we were ready to go. As long as it's just a regular day train between those two cities there are many of them.

Depending somewhat on the time of year and the location of the train station, if you do decide to just walk into a train station and buy tickets, be prepared to stand in line - anywhere from 10-40 minutes or more. I hate to have to add that kind of time onto my schedules, so I always buy in advance. It's amazing sometimes how much customers and train ticket sellers can find to chat about when there is a line of people waiting to buy tickets. Worse than cashiers at French grocery stores.

Even several years ago Italian train stations had many ticket machines that were easy to use - are these now gone? And most folks could book on their phones? Not sure about that and that's why I'm asking.

As I said, it depends on the station you're originating from. NO, there are still no machines in many small train stations, just as there aren't here in France.

When somebody asks me about just walking into a station and booking a train it does not occur to me that that person will walk into the station and use a cell phone to book a ticket. If that is the way they prefer to make a booking, why wouldn't they do it in advance and not talk about "going to the station the day of travel?"

Logic, Pal, logic.

I did not say they would go to station and book - negates going to station. Logic StCirq, logic!

I thought you were talking about Florence SMN station and machines - sorry. Get with it and book by phone!

Venice to Florence the OP will be using the two central train stations. Not only ticket machines but an Italo lounge and likely a TrenItalia lounge. I can't remember if there is a lounge in Venice for TrenItalia but they have one in Florence.

Mid June isn't that busy but buying on the day will mean paying top price. If you don't mind paying the extra money no reason to buy in advance. You will find a seat even if it might only be in first class for some time slots.

Good advice from greg.