I've found a train scheduled to go from Vienna (Austria) to Treviso (Italy) that I'm planning on taking when I visit there in October. So far I've looked it up on www.oebb.at, trenitalia.com, and bahn.de. They all show the train on the schedule.

However, I'm not able to book it online, no pricing info is given and in the notes it says: "Subject to compulsory reservation".

Just wondering what that means and where I can find the price?

The Cook Timetable shows several trains; which timing (departure time) are you looking at?

Generally, "subject to compulsory reservation" means just that..you have to have a seat or some sort of berth reserved.

Perhaps the reason you aren't getting a price is because the train runs internationally.

You can't book tickets at trenitalia.com more than 60 days in advance. (I don't know the advance limit for oebb.at, but it may be the same.) At any rate, try a dummy booking for a date less than 60 days from today and you should be given the fare information you need.

Indeed they should even have some very cheap SPAR (?) offerings for online bookings. And RailEurope actually has $25 fares listed for Austria/Germany to Italy trains - i saw one Munich-Rome for $25 (plus handling and shipping of course, about $30) but still a steal. www.raileurope.com for pricing - the regular fare should approximate what you'd pay on a walk up basis in Europe - RE has recently be re-casting their European fares to match market pricing in effect in Italy and on these trains, etc. But generally still is a bit higher.

First, anything booked through Trenitalia has to be picked up in Italy (not much good if that is where you are going).

Second, for the most part, Austrian Rail only sells tickets for, and shows prices for, connections entirely within Austria. However, they do sell tickets online for some special selected routes and trains, and that includes Vienna to Treviso for €29.

Go to the Austrian Rail website, click on English, and look for "Sparscheine Italy".

I believe that ticket comes with reservations. When you get to the page where you put in your CC #, don't worry. At the bottom of the page it says, "Im nächsten Schritt erfolgt noch KEINE Abbuchung von Ihrer Zahlungskarte ", which means, "in the next step there is still no charge from you payment card."

That price is probably only available online.

pliant,

if you speak some german, you can easily book the tickets on oebb.at:

http://www.oebb.at/vip8/pv/en/Travel...ucts/index.jsp

Click on the "book online" link for Italy. HOWEVER, they only go on sale 3 months in advance.

The cheapest fare in 2nd class is currently EUR 29 all in, payable online by credit card. You print the tickets out yourself at home after completing the booking.

Hope this helps,
Andre

Unless things have changed, I thought RailEurope's S+H fee was a minimum of $15.00 per order. Is that not correct?

thanks for the information. i followed andre's instructions and was able to see some tickets available up til sept 4th. i'll just have to wait another month and hopefully the one i'm wanting in october will show up!

i'm looking for a 6:30 departure (7 hour trip) or earlier so that we can get to treviso before the whole day is gone.

IntrepidOne: Raileurope has no shipping fee for orders $200 and over but still has a $15 per order booking fee for all reservations (one time fee). A new fee RE has is it's charging $25 i believe if you want to order by phone as they push folks to the web, where their prices are often higher than what RE can actually book if you talk to someone. Under $200 RE has a $15 (i think) mailing fee.