My husband and I are leaving in a few weeks for a 2 week trip travelling through Italy by train. My question is whether we need to buy (or reserve) train tickets in advance or buy them at the train stations on the day of departure. We are flying into Milan and then going to Venice, Bologna, La Spezia, Lucca and Florence. Two of those trips (Venice to Bologna and La Spezia to Lucca) are on Sundays. We are catching another connection in Lucca and especially need to get there on time. Also, any recommendations on fast vs. regular train or various class options? Thanks for your input!

Unless you have an extremely tight budget you should simply take the fastest train possible.

First or second class depends on:

How long the trip is
How much you value larger, more comfy seats and/t more room for luggage
How strict the budget is

We do first class since we prefer more seating and luggage room - but second is fine for most people

>>>My question is whether we need to buy (or reserve) train tickets in advance or buy them at the train stations on the day of departure.<<<

Without knowing the actual itinerary, it's hard to advise. If you are traveling from Milan to Venice on arrival day, I would not book that in advance as your flights might be delayed. If not arrival day, you can get discounts by booking online in advance (Milan/Venice as cheap as 9€ - regular price or walk up price is about 35€).

Any trains to and from Lucca are old, slow regional trains. There is no class choice(all one class) and there are no discounts. Regional trains do not have reserved seats and don't sell out so there is no advantage to buying in advance. You can buy them online within a week of travel, but the tickets will have more restrictions than purchased at the station or from any of the stores/travel agencies with the Trenitalia logo. Regional trains from Lucca to La Spezia and Pisa to Florence are all one class also.

>>>Also, any recommendations on fast vs. regular train or various class options? <<<

Only major cities are served by the fastest trains (AV or Frecce). Fast trains don't stop in all the little towns (one of the reasons they are fast). Many small towns such as Lucca will only be served by regional trains. Some small towns such as La Spezia will have regional, IC (a bit faster) and a very few fast trains. I would not delay my schedule to La Spezia based on a fast train availability. You're likely to spend more time hanging out for the fast train than if you go on and catch the slow train.

Your routes fast trains:
Milan/Venice
Venice/Bologna
Bologna/Florence (you have to change trains in Florence to get to Lucca)

You can book those in advance if you want to see if discounts are available.

to NYtraveler.
Discounts are available? Will that info be noted on schedules. Are there senior discounts in Italy?

Since you seem experienced with trains--On an itinerary I checked on ie Brindisi/ Rome, Naples/ Brindisi I wasn't sure if the towns listed along the way were train stops or actual train changes.
Thanks

Here's a pic of 2nd class on the fast trains:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ssainterno.jpg

>>>Since you seem experienced with trains--On an itinerary I checked on ie Brindisi/ Rome, Naples/ Brindisi I wasn't sure if the towns listed along the way were train stops or actual train changes.<<<

If you are looking on Trenitalia, which is the Italian train company, changes will be listed. To see the actual stops, click the i next to train type/number.

We had a 'rule' that if a trip was more than 3 hours, then we booked 1st class.

Do be mindful that there is no fanfare when Italian trains leave the platform, just a tiny whistle toot and off they go. No PA announcements etc, at least not as far as I could work out.

check out seat61.com to understand italian trains. The things are very clean arrive on time and leave on time (I didn't know there was a small toot, I thought the clock ticked down to the minute and the thing moved out). The only tricky thing is regionale trains often change platform, so if you hear a ding-dong and everyone on your platform moves off to another platform then you may want to too.

Regionale are often crowded, slow and often less clean the intercity trains.

On a recent trip Northern Italy, we only prebooked one journey, Milan to Venice on a Sunday.
One slight warning about buying tickets immediately prior to travelling. The purchase of tickets at the ticket counter seems to be quite time consuming - particularly if the queue is long and your train is departing in the next ten minutes.
We took the precaution of dropping in to the rail station the day before travelling on and having the ticket to hand when we showed up for our train on the day.

You should be able to buy your tickets at the machines in the concourse. You only really need to talk to the people at the ticket counter if you want complicated stuff

>>> The purchase of tickets at the ticket counter seems to be quite time consuming - particularly if the queue is long and your train is departing in the next ten minutes.<<<

In the larger stations, there are rows of ticket machines so no need to get in a line unless you have some questions.

We just got back from Italy and took trains to and from La Spezia, Pisa and Florence and did not book ahead and had no problems getting a seat. We just purchased our tickets from the ticket counter.

Thanks for all these tidbits of info. They'll certainly save time and frustration.

Be warned that regional trains, at least in my experience can be daunting. We never saw a conductor and had no idea which station we were pulling into until we were actually there, as there is no announcement. If your Italian is up to it you could ask other passengers, but in my case they didn't know how many more stops before mine.

Eventually we moved to the platform at the end of the car so we could be ready to get off ASAP, since the time at each stop was very short. Oh and make sure you know how to open the door. A young American woman missed her stop, where her sister was waiting to meet her, because she didn't realize you had to push a button at the side of the door at the same time as you open the door. The only reason we didn't miss our stop was that we had observed her misfortune!

You can print the stops from Trenitalia (click the i next to the train number you plan to take to show all the stops). Regional train stops are often only 1 minute. Sometimes a bit longer (3-4 minutes). You do need to be at the door with your luggage ready to hop off or you will miss your stop. The only time a stop will be longer is if it's a station that the train must pull in and then back out (like Roma Termini or Florence). Many smaller stations are pull through so stops are very short.