Can anyone tell me their experiences about not reserving train seats when travel between major cities such as Rome,Milan,Florence, &amp; Venice.<BR>I'm sure when we arrive in the city I can then make my RSVP for our departing train which would be only 3 days into the future.<BR>Are non-smoking seats hard to get w/o a RSVP? Traveling as a pair, hard to get seats together w/o RSVP?<BR>Thanks<BR>

Since trains have reduced the number of smoking cars or spaces, my observation is that the smoking sections are now the most crowded. So it should be easier to get two seats in non-smoking than smoking.<BR>I should think that unless you are there at some very busy special time, you should have no problem getting the seats you want two to three days ahead on those routes.<BR><BR>I've traveled those routes on passes a couple of times in the busy season and the two of us never had a problem without reservations at all -- although I believe that reservations are required on the Eurostar trains (not to be confused with the London/Paris Eurostar).

Thanks for info. we leave in a week. Based on your experience I'm not terribly concerned w/ RSVP.

Allright, a little story for you. Last time I have travelled without reservations was some five yeras ago, when I had the sad idea not to reserve seats fr a Milano-Salerno (south of Naples) round trip. The outcome was that I had to stand in the corridor for the whole trip back to Milano (then hours straight). I was desperate, when I arrived back home I was almost in tears. Yet, 2 days are usually long enough for booking trains, booking a few hours in advance will still grant you a way to leave, although you may not be able to reserve on the train that leaves at the most favorable time for you. Also, it is far harder to book a smoking seat: I have to do it for Friday, when I will be going to Firenze with my heavily smoking dad, in this case I will have to book the seat at least 2 days in advance.<BR>If you do nto reserve, it MAY be hard to get ONE seat at all!!!

Didn`t reserve seats between Venice and Florence. We had to sit in the corridor with pull down seats. Everytime someone wanted to go by, we had to stand up.

The secret to those type of seats is simply to seat parallel to the window/wall I tend to only take IR trains (if possible), and thus never make reservations.. however on long IC train rides I ALWAYS make them, because sitting in the aisle for longer than an hour frankly sucks. ES isn't a question, since you basically have to book a seat.