Train reservations?
 

I know this topic has been discussed on another thread, but I have a slightly different question along this vein - we will be traveling for a couple weeks in the Greek Islands, before we arrive for three days in Venice.

Our plan is to take a day train trip from Venice to Paris. We know we will need to transfer in Milan, but it appears we can do that by leaving Venice very early in the morning and connecting at about 9 a.m. in Milan. We have a place to stay in Venice very close to S. Lucia station, so getting there early will be easy for the first train to Mestre, where we will connect to Milan.

Here's the question - the Milan to Paris train schedule has an "R" so I realize we will need reservations. Is two or three days ahead enough time? Our trip is going to be in late October, if that makes a difference ... maybe fewer passengers than in summer season? Can we buy the Milan to Paris tix in Venice at the station a couple days early?

I've done this route as an overnight train. Venice to Milan in the afternoon, transfering into the sleeper cars for the rest of the trip.

Sorry, I know that's not an answer to your question, but just a thought. It's quite a long train ride to spend the entire day in transit imo.

WEll, we want to see the countryside - that is why we are doing this as a day trip. I know it is 10 hours ... but I think it will be okay.

Yes, you can get the Milan-Paris tickets ahead at any Italian train stations. But since this is a long-distance/TGV route, you can probably get significant discounts when booking early on either trenitalia.com or voyages-sncf.com.

When you get to Venice, go to the train station and purchase the tickets from Venice to Paris.


I usually do my planning on the German train site, then print out the routes and bring them to the station when I buy tickets. My language skills are not the best so I can just show the paper and the date and time are listed.
I just did a quick check and this is a 12-13 hour trip, and most routes look like they have 2-4 connections.
www.bahn.de Then click International Guest so it will display in English.
Have a fun trip!

My sister and 2 daughters 16+ did this last year and took a picnic. Let them strike up conversations with those around them.

Milan station is a gem

cls2paris - Thank you for steering me to the German website! Great resource. I found the itinerary we want - it is actually about 11 hours with only one change, or 10.5 hours with 2 changes.

The time between connections is only about 10 minutes in Milan - is that do-able? For non-Italian speakers who have no familiarity with the Milano station?

As rkkwan says, you can get discount fares by booking ahead. Here are the ranges on the Trenitalia site:

SECOND CLASS
Flexi 1 - €95
Flexi 2 - €85
Go - €60
Smart Price - €45
Smart Price 2 - €25

FIRST CLASS
Flexi 1 - €120
Flexi 2 - €110
Go - €70
Smart Price - €50

There aren't as many choices on the SNCF site, but the lowest ones match what you can get on the Trenitalia site.

I found the low "Smart" fares at Trenitalia, but am having a heck of a time buying one. Even though I followed all the instructions to register on Trenitalia, there was no venue to put in a password ... and in order to buy our tickets in advance, we have to enter a password. Go figure ... I am at a loss, because I definitely want to take advantage of the fares. Have tried the process at least four times, and when I try to re-register it won't let me, because I am "already registered." Aaack ... driving me crazy.

HI SC,

Did trenitalia send you an email with your password?

Ira - No they did not! That's what I don't understand, because I registered about an hour and a half ago, and the website said it would send me an email with a password. So - I tried to re-register, but I can't do it with the same email address. Do you think they will eventually send me a password? Does it take a longer time than I am used to? Fortunately we aren't traveling for about 6 weeks, so no big rush. I just figured it would be one more travel task out of the way.

Lots of people have trouble registering. Sometimes the e-mail in question appears after a day or two. Sometimes it's lost forever. People report having success registering a seocnd time using a differet e-mail account.

If nothing works, book on the SNCF site. You'll have to choose to have your tickets sent to an address in Italy--like your hotel in Venice.

I looked at the SNCF site, but I can't seem to find the same prices as the SMART fares on Trenitalia. All I am getting is the full fare, which is about six times the amount of the promotional fares on Trenitalia for the same routes and times. How do I access the promo fares on SNCF?

What date?

October 29. We want to take the early train out of Mestre (6:03 a.m. or so)- actually we will be setting out from S. Lucia, but can get to Mestre on a local train. Changing trains in Milan. The schedule we are looking at gets us into Paris (Lyon) at 4:11 p.m.

I just went to the SNCF site and found PREM'S for your date and time. Here's a link: http://tinyurl.com/2676pw. If it works, you should be able to proceed with booking.

Oops! The link I gave you would allow you to book a ticket for one person. Here's a new link that will allow you to book for two people: http://tinyurl.com/2nskpc.

Thank you for taking the time to link me to that site - unfortunately it doesn't seem to be able to open with that URL.

Yikes, this is apparently becoming an endless quest! I think I will try the Trenitalia site again with a different email address ... otheriwse, if you could email me with instructions to getting to the PREM part of the SNCF site, that might be a possibility. We do have a "friend of a friend" who lives in Venice ... could probably have the tix mailed to her for us to pick up in late October when we arrive.

Believe it or not - my email is [email protected] - and it wasn't ever supposed to be an Italian "train" connotation, though.

October 29, train 9242 9:10-16:11 Milano Centrale to Paris Gare de Lyon.

Two people, PREM fares 90€ total. Bookable on www.voyages-sncf.com

Just try it. It can be done. You can print your PREM tickets at home, or pick up at the specified Italian train station (Milan in this case).

Or get the Venice-Paris fare altogether. 146€. Which is more or less the same as buying the Venice-Milan part separately.

You didn't try to use your AOL address on Trenitalia did you? If so, that's your problem - AOL blocks many e-mails that they think are spam and they appear in your spam folder either.

You could try getting AOL to track down the e-mail they blocked. You could also try using a Hotmail or Yahoo e-mail address.