Intermittent train travel (Milano/Venice/Florence/Rome) over a 15 day period of time in December/January 2011. Which train is recommended for faster travel - Frecciarossa or Eurostar? So confused! KYBOURBON: your name was referred to in a previous thread as one of the many Fodorite experts on the subject. Should we buy the tix in advance or not?

Go to the official Italian rail website and try some test itineraries. You will quickly see which trains are fastest and the price of each for each class and you can determine which fits your budget and schedule. After you choose a particular train, you will also see if discounted fares are available.

http://www.fsitaliane.it/homepage_en.html

Another good site that explains all about Italian trains:

http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/trains/index.htm

Are you just taking the three trips (Milan/Venice, Venice/Florence and Florence/Rome)?

This link explains the various trains.
http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...003f16f90aRCRD

You can't buy advance tickets yet as winter schedules/fees aren't loaded yet. Trenitalia tends to load them late (late Nov/early Dec) and the new schedules usually start around second week of Dec.

Missed your final question--the benefit of tickets of advance is to possibly get a discounted fare which are available on a limited basis. You might get a discount even by purchasing a day in advance if the limited number of discounts have not sold out. If you are unsure of exactly when you wil want to travel, then waiting until you are in Italy is fine, since you are traveling popular routes with many options each day.

The Italian rail site is trenitalia.com. It isn't the train it is the schedule because all the trains do not follow the same route. Buying tickets in advance should provide some discount BUT it does lock you to a fixed schedule with non refundable tickets. So be sure you know your schedule.

If you want to check prices and schedules, just input dates for next week. The new winter schedules should be similar.

Thank you everyone. The concensus is to buy when tix in ITALY?

Yes fast train IME run usually on time - in fact Trenitalia guarantees ontime arrivals or within a few minutes by some kind of money back guarantee I believe. (Bourbon above, Fodor's absolute Italian rail expert IME will know more about that than I)

the fastest trains - ES type high-speed trains (also called AV and some other names I believe) are infinitely more comfy than older IC trains and certainly dumpy IME regional trains.

And though 2nd class is comfy enough on fast trains IME of riding Italian trains incessantly for years now I am adamant that for the average tourist, especially those hauling luggage around, that first class is a much much more relaxed experience and well worth the rather neglible IMO extra fee to use it - there is some reason zillions of Italians pay extra for first class you know

so IMO apply the same criteria to train travel as you do to hotels and restaurants, etc. Do you eat at McDonalds where you can eat perfectly well for a little or stay at one-star budget hotels where you can get a perfectly good night's sleep - most folks spend $200 and over for a hotel each night and probably $100 or more on proper restaurants - so these costs pale to what going first class on Italian trains cost - and if wanting flexibility to take any train anytime once you are there and if traveling more than say two long trips then by all means investigate the Italy Railpass - compared to full fares just a few long journeys can make it pay off and you can, unlike the discounted online tickets that hard to change or refund once there - can be great deals, especially in first class.

2nd class online discounted tickets are often the best deal for those with few trains trips but if you want flexibility to take any train once there and not have to book something weeks in advance that is for all purposes non-changeable nor refundable then go with that.

Great sources for info on Italian trains (and passes) - www.ricksteves.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.seat61.com.

Thank you PalenQ!

A good thread on the issue of 1st vs. 2nd class on Italian trains .......
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...2nd-class-.cfm

IMO, as long as you're on one of the fast trains, second classe is fine. Yes, there are differences .... but not on same scale as difference between 1st & coach on an airplane.

mrubio0806, you can buy tickets in advance - or wait until you get to Italy. The advantage of buying in advance is... saving money. The *best* current discount for the traveler is probably the MINI Discount - see http://tinyurl.com/MINI-fare

We recently traveled from Venice to Florence and pre-purchased the MINI discounted tickets. Normal price was €22 and the BASE price was €43 per person. So we saved about 50%!

Unfortunately, if you are using MINI tickets, changes are not allowed. We once wanted to change seats and they told us NO! So if you do buy in advance you have to treat these train tickets like "non-refundable" airline tickets. You do lose some flexibility as you're locked into a specific train, on specific date and time. But you can save up to 60%. For info on buying tickets online at the Trenitalia website - and using the ticketless options - read these two posts:

http://tinyurl.com/tren-online
http://tinyurl.com/ticketless

Or... you can wait until you get to Italy. The kiosks are very easy to use (and have an English option). If you purchase the day before, you can still get the MINI discount on the faster trains if they're available. (Most often, they are sold out as Trenitalia controls the MINI ticket allotment). Here's a link to help you with the kiosks in Italian train stations: http://tinyurl.com/buy-tickets-2011

As far as first class vs. second class, GAC wrote a great article and made recommendations. If you want a "local" experience, head to 2nd class as often many folks in 1st class are businessmen or Americans. Here's a link to GAC's article: http://tinyurl.com/1st-or-2nd

I have found the self-service kiosks or machines in Italian stations a snap to use - all in English (click on British flag I think!) and our credit cards seem to IME work though I have not tried that in some time, usually having some kind of pass.

Yes, the self service machines are easy to use as long as you want to use your credit card. Unfortunately they do not use the local currency. For that you will have to stand in line, so it is best to purchase in advance or at least a few days before you want to travel. We purchased our 1st ticket on line, but then the system would not allow us to purchase any more so we just waited until we got to Milan and then purchased the next leg there. In other words we purchased each leg ahead of the time, i.e. Riomaggiore purchased in Milan, Lucca purchased in Genova.
The trains when they run, run on time and second class is generally reasonably comfortable.

This thread was well worth posting. All of the feedback has been very helpful. Thank you very much to all.

>>>>Yes, the self service machines are easy to use as long as you want to use your credit card. Unfortunately they do not use the local currency.<<<<

You can use cash in the machines. There are typically some that are cash only and some that accept credit cards also.

Absolutely you can use euros in the ticket machines. Once in a while you might find one that has run out of cash to make change and therefore isn't accepting cash for the time being, but that's the exception, not the rule.

We purchased our 1st ticket on line, but then the system would not allow us to purchase any more so we just waited until we got to Milan and then purchased the next leg there. In other words we purchased each leg ahead of the time>

So the assurances here from some posters that www.trenitalia.com has straightened out its flummoxing problems is not true? I thought it all was a piece of cake now - it seems using www.trenitalia.com still sucks, at least for the novice user?

PQ - I think you need to realize the person posting that was likely trying to purchase an R ticket more than a week in advance (not possible). They were also incorrect about the machines not accepting money.

Point being bourbon that trenitalia.com should explain that and does not, leaving folks flummoxed and with perhaps the wrong idea - and hard to believe that all their legs were on regional trains, especially going from Milano unless on the Nord de Milano commuter train to say Como?

No the site has perplexed people for years on Fodors and though experts like you know all the ins and outs for novice users, according to scores and scores of posts it can be frustrating as heck - even now it seems.

Just want to add that you can buy train tickets in Italy at travel agencies displaying the Trenitalia logo. Most travel agents speak English.

So you can pick up your tickets in the course of your sightseeing without making a special trip to the train station or without going to the station extra early to allow for lines at the ticket machines. However I suspect there won't be long lines in January.