Traveling from Riomaggiore to Venice
 

In an earlier post, I inquired about the "easiest" way to get my family of five from Riomaggiore to Venice. It was recommended that perhaps I should take Riomaggiore dp 7.23- Venice ar 14.18. This would involve four regional trains, no reservations needed. Does anyone see any potential pitfalls to this approach? If we decide to go this route, I would not purchase the regional tickets until that day, correct? Is there any possibility that any of the legs of this trip would sell out? Thank you...we really appreciate the valuable insights! I know that the tickets need to be validated prior to boarding.

Not sure of when you are traveling or if you have time constraints but your best option is: Riomaggiore to La Spezia Centrale to Firenze to Venezia, only 2 changes.

Regional trains can't tell out; only trains that are reserved can sell out. But you might not get a seat on a crowded train. Be prepared to stand if the trains are crowded, but you might snag seats at a subsequent stop when some of the people get off.

I looked up your train and see that you probably picked it because of cost (10-15 Euros per person cheaper than the next more expensive option). Your connections aren't too tight except the one in Parma which has a 17 minute connection, which is more than enough if the trains are on time, but if your train is 20 minutes late, you'll have to take the next regional train to Bologna and then the next regional train to Venice. I'd look at the schedule and see when those would be just to be prepared.

Also, remember that in most/all of these stations you have to change trains by going down stairs (or look for an elevator) to go under the tracks, unless your two connecting trains happen to share opposing platforms.

I'm also not sure what Trenitalia's policy on missed trains is. I'm sure you could take a later regional train at no extra cost if you miss a connection because your arriving train was late, but I'm not sure if you are required to tell someone and get a new ticket or just use the original ticket and go on the later trains. I think you have one ticket per person that you'd validate in Riomaggiore (in a machine) for the whole journey,

If you're going to make a long day of things anyway, you might consider stopping for a few hours off the train in Parma or Bologna to go look around (leave bags at the station - not sure if there are lockers or luggage counters or not, I don't remember). I'm not sure how you'd buy one ticket with the stop-over or whether you need to buy two separate tickets (in some countries, you are allowed to do a stop-over - I did it in Slovenia). I really loved Parma. It is a hike from the train station to the center of town, but there are buses. The town center isn't very big. Consider getting a meal there - Emilia-Romagna has some of the best food in Italy.

Either Parma ar 10.13, dp 10.30 - Bologna ar 11.28 or
Parma ar 10.13, dp 10.56 - Bologna ar 12.08
Bologna dp 12.20 - Venice ar 14.18 or - in the worst possible case - Bologna dp 13.20 - Venice ar 15.18

There is a luggage deposit at Bologna, but none at Parma.

Regional train tickets are not issued for certain trains, but for a certain time frame, according to the length of the journey

While regional trains can't sell out, there are no amenities on them at all. It's a false economy to try to save a few euro and spend a couple of more hours on this type of train.

If you are traveling with family, you should look at the part of the routes that are on the fast trains and see about a family discount (there are no discounts on regional trains). Use regional trains to reach the station with the fast train.

I don't know why you've started a new topic about this. All the context of the previous topic has been lost.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-to-venice.cfm

In that previous topic, I recommended the 8:59 departure from Riomaggiore, with a change of train in Viareggio and in Florence. You would get to Venice at 14:20, the same time as the 7:23 departure you mention above. It has two advantages over any of the other routings I saw: it's almost the quickest journey time possible, and has only three trains instead of four. All the other routings had other four trains, or took considerably longer, and in some cases both.

Of all trains, regional trains are the most likely to run late. It's also true that they are sometimes crowded and you're not guaranteed a seat. (I once heard a kid who had a seat on a regional train from Venice to Bologna call out that he would sell his seat to one of the standing passengers for ten euros.)

Traveling across the entire country for seven hours on four regional trains doesn't appeal to me at all. I'm not sure why it seemed better than the itinerary I had proposed, which was only 5 hours and 20 minutes, much of it on a high-speed train with a reserved seat.

If you miss your connection to Parma in La Spezia, you would have to wait over two hours for the next regional train. If you miss the connection in Parma, there are frequent trains from there to Bologna, but not all are regional trains. You can use your regional ticket on a different regional train, but not on any other type of train. Between Bologna and Venice, only a minority of the trains are regional trains, but trains are very frequent on this part of the route.

I don't know how they would sell the tickets for this four-regional-train route, but since it's not an advertised routing, it would probably involve multiple tickets. You should stamp each one just before you use it, instead of stamping all of them in Riomaggiore. That way there's no problem with the time running out. On the three-train route, you would probably be given a single ticket to Florence via Viareggio, since it's an advertised connection. You would definitely have a different ticket for the Frecciargento train from Florence to Venice.

The tickets are usually issued for all the people in your party, but lately I've sometimes been given separate tickets for each passenger. I think it has been only on the high-speed trains, and maybe it's because we sometimes use a discount associated with our Trenitalia loyalty card; in that case they need the two names on the tickets, and maybe they can do that only by issuing separate tickets.