Is it possible to travel by train from Milan to Florence by just buying a ticket on the day at the station and do you have to reserve seats on all train journeys?

You can purchase just before boarding if there are seats available. The faster trains all have reserved seats, so you will be purchasing a reservation on a particular train for a particular seat, even if it's for a train that departs five minutes from the moment of purchase.

Hi Maree, it's also really easy to use the ticket machines at the train station. Just choose the English language option and follow the prompts. We did this several times when the queues at the ticket office were really long.

One thing to remember with italian trains is that there is no fuss when they depart the station (no announcements etc) - just a tiny little toot and off they go. So make sure you are on board well before the departure time. On our first Italian train trip (Florence to Rome) we were running very late and racing along the platform trying to find our carriage. Our only clue that we needed to hurry up and board was when the train staff who had been casually hanging around, suddenly stubbed out their cigarettes and jumped on board!!

Yes, it is possible to travel by train by just buying a ticket on the day at the station. But the answer needs to be qualified. Whether you can get a seat on a particular train is a different matter. I have traveled around Easter and the there were no empty seats. Do I presume you are traveling alone? Trying to sit together has also been troublesome during busy times.

thank you everyone for your replies - this gives me something to think about.