Hi, My husband and I are traveling in Italy end of June and plan to purchase the train tickets at the airport station when we arrive. I've got two questions regarding this:

1) On the RailEurope website, it says that seat reservations are compulsory for travel on the Eurostar. Yet I've heard that seat reservations are INCLUDED when purchasing a Eurostar ticket. So even though RailEurope charges these two things separately, if I purchase a Eurostar ticket from the station in Italy, will that ticket automatically include reservations?

2) Few trains depart from Venice to Rome. With it being June, will buying these tickets a week ahead of time be enough time to ensure a spot on the train that we want? Or should we purchase those tickets now?

Thanks for your help!

Hi Newman,

Seat reservations are compulsory on ES* trians. They are included in the ticket price when you buy from Trenitalia.

This is the price shown at www.trenitalia.com.

When you buy through RailEurope, or any other TA, you get an "open ticket". You must then purchase a reservation for a specific train. This costs another 12E, or so.

A week ahead should be OK, unless you have picked a weekend or holiday..

If you want to be adventurous, you can buy tickets on line from Trenitalia at www.trenitalia.com. You MUST use the Italian language option.

There are lots of trains from Venezia to Bologna and from Bologna to Roma, so there are many options even if the through trains are fully booked. Whether the trains are busy will depend mainly on the time and day: trains are generally busiest around weekends and holidays.

ira, I'm not sure if you meant to imply that buying a Eurostar ticket through a travel agent in Italy will still require paying extra for a reservation, but not so! I did just that today for two different ES trips and there was no extra charge, but the exact amount as on the Trenitalia site. And Mewman5th, be sure to check for specials as I've just posted on another new thread. We also booked two ES tickets Rome to Venice for next Saturday at 30€ each in first class (normally 67.14€ each), and that also included the reservation. It's a special they're doing for Saturday travel, but there are other deals too.

Patrick, I think ira was referring to TAs at home, not in Italy.